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THE  HISTORY  OF   LITERATURE 


LECTURES 


ON    THE 


HISTORY  OF    LITERATURE 


DELIVERED   BY 

THOMAS    CARLYLE 

April  to  July  1838 


NOW  PRINTED   FOR    THE   FIRST    TIME 


EDITED,    WITH   PREFACE   AND    NOTES,    BY 

-^-^==^- PROFESSOR   J.   REAY    GREENE 
OF  TH 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1892 


Copyright,  1892,  by 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 


TROW  DIRECTORY 

PRINTING  AND   BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 

NEW   YORK 


(25 


PREFACE 

The  Lectures  on  Literature  by  Thomas  Car- 
lyle,  published  for  the  first  time  in  the  i)resent 
Yohime,  were  delivered  at  17  Edward  Street, 
Portman  Square,  London,  during-  the  second 
quarter  of  the  year  1838.  Full  reports  of  the 
twelve  lectures,  excex^ting  the  ninth,  were  taken 
by  the  late  Mr.  Thomas  Chisholm  Anstey,  bar- 
rister-at-law  and  subsequently  member  of  Par- 
liament for  Youghal.  Mr.  Anstey  must  have 
possessed  considerable  skill  for  the  perform- 
ance of  his  task.  The  reader  will  soon  see  for 
himself  how  unmistakably  many  characteristics 
of  Carlyle's  style  are  here  rendered. 

Mr.  Anstey  had  copies  of  these  reports  made 
by  a  few  friends.  Three  such  copies  are  known 
to  exist.  One,  the  property  of  the  iDublishers, 
has  been  compared  with  a  second  copy  kindlj' 
l^laced  at  their  disposal  by  Professor  Dowden, 
who  has  already  noted  samples  of  its  contents 
in  the  opening  i)ages  of  his  interesting*  volume 
entitled     Transcripts    and    Studies.      The    two 


VI  PREFACE 

MSS.,  although  the  work  of  different  hands, 
g-ive  concordant  renderings  throughout.  The 
original  MS.  in  Mr.  Anstey's  handwriting  is 
now  the  property  of  the  Asiatic  Society,  Bom- 
bay, who  acquired  it  at  his  death. 

To  each  lecture  its  date  is  here  prefixed.  As 
few  changes  as  possible  have  been  made  in  the 
way  of  correction.  Slips  concerning  state- 
ments capable  of  verification  and  obviously  due 
to  momentary  lapses  of  attention  on  the  part  of 
the  reporter  have  in  various  cases  been  rec- 
tified. It  must  be  remembered  that  Carlyle 
appears  in  our  pages  not  as  a  writer  but  as  a 
speaker.  So,  in  estimating  some  doubtful  locu- 
tions, it  seemed  best  to  follow  the  safe  guide  of 
analogy  offered  by  the  author's  well-known 
Lectures  on  Heroes  and  Hero  Worship,  deliv- 
ered in  the  same  place,  only  two  years  later 
than  the  present  course. 

Why  did  not  Carlyle  issue  these  Lectures  on 
Literature  in  his  life-time  ?  Doubtless  he 
shrank  from  the  slow  labor  of  preparing  for 
IDublication  discourses  which  deal  with  topics 
demanding  careful  treatment  while  almost 
infinite  in  their  extent  and  diversit}^  A 
prophet  announcing  high  truths,  he  may  not 
have  felt  himself  so  well  fitted  to  do  the  work 


PREFACE  Vll 

of  a  commentator.  Fond  as  he  was  of  needful 
repetitions,  of  variations  on  the  same  theme, 
after  the  manner  of  most  impressive  preachers 
and  of  some  musicians,  he  had  not  the  expan- 
sive suavity  of  exposition  which  is  so  charming 
in  Malebranche.  It  may  well  have  seemed  to 
him  an  irksome  business  to  spoil  perhaps  his 
own  sentences,  so  effective  when  spoken,  to 
weaken  their  force  by  critical  interpolations. 
His  natural  impatience,  his  glowing  produc- 
tivity, urged  him  to  other  work.  For  in  1838 
the  genius  of  Carlyle  may  be  said  to  have 
reached  its  highest  and  most  fervid  epoch. 

Carlyle's  French  Revolution,  acknowledged  to 
be  one  of  the  best  and  most  individual  of  his 
books,-  is  not  so  much  a  history  of  that  great 
chain  of  events  as  an  apt  selection  of  striking 
episodes,  together  with  a  running  comment  on 
other  histories  and  on  the  lessons  v/hich  revo- 
lutions should  teach.  The  same  may  be  said 
of  the  lectures  before  us.  They  do  not  consti- 
tute a  manual.  They  are  the  more  welcome  on 
this  account,  for  manuals  of  literature  abound. 
They  cannot  rightly  be  blamed  because  of  their 
omissions.  They  treat  less  of  literature  than  of 
the  causes  of  literature,  its  course  and  its  sig- 
nificance. 


Vlll  PEEFACE 

We  waive  the  oiDportunity  here  afforded  us 
of  adding-  one  more  to  the  multitude  of  essays 
on  Carlyle  as  himself  a  power  in  literature. 
The  reader  perhax^s  will  thank  us.  Carlyle  was 
wont  to  say  that  in  some  golden  age  publishers 
and  the  iDublic  would  see  the  wisdom  of  paying 
authors  for  what  they  do  not  write. 

During  the  weeks  that  followed  Carlyle's 
death  and  the  appearance  of  the  valuable  bi- 
ograiDhy  by  Mr.  Froude  the  press  teemed  with 
notices  passing  judgment  on  our  author  and 
all  things  concerning  him.  Who  now  studies 
these  notices  %  Have  they  any  permanent  value  ? 
Are  they  not  like  the  aesthetic  criticisms  on 
Shakespeare,  so  little  relished  by  the  most  de- 
voted *  of  English  Shakespeare-students  ?  The 
good  sense  of  many  will  turn  from  reviews  of 
Carlyle  to  Carlyle  himself.  He  tells  us  in  his 
first  loaragraph  (page  2)  that  authors  unlike 
heroes  need  no  illumination  from  without ;  they 
are  self-luminous.  Carlyle's  own  brightness 
now  makes  him  shine  as  a  fixed  star  in  our  lit- 
erary firmament.  His  radiance  may  be  ob- 
scured ;  quenched  it  cannot  be.  His  faults  and 
foibles  are  manifest,  yet  is  he  esteemed  in  spite 

^  The  late  Mr.  Halliwell  Pliillips.  See  his  Memoranda  on 
the  IVagechj  of  Ilainlet,,  London,  1879, 


PREFACE  IX 

of  them,  and  by  too  many  because  of  them. 
His  prejudices  are  vexatious,  at  least  occasion- 
ally. So  are  those  of  De  Quincey,  at  his  best 
the  best  English  prose-writer  of  this  century. 
Amid  all  Carljde's  prejudices,  amid  all  his  de- 
nunciations of  men  and  things  to  be  condemned, 
we  see  him  capable  of  hope ;  we  feel  he  sym- 
pathizes with  his  fellow-creatures.  Beneath  a 
mask  of  ferocity  love  beams  from  his  counte- 
nance.    Like  Tasso's  heroic  prince — 

Se'l  miri  fulminar  fra  Varme  auvolto. 
Marte  lo  stimi ;  Amor  se  scopre  il  volto. 

No  healthy  man  can  doubt  Carlyle's  sincerity. 
We  ought  surely  to  greet  with  pleasure  every 
combination  of  sinceritj^,  ability,  and  amiabilitj^ 
We  courteously,  therefore,  invite  the  reader  to 
enjoy  the  rich  literary  treat  here  set  before  him. 

Our  thanks  are  due  to  Professor  Dowden  for 
his  kindness  in  placing  his  transcript  of  these 
Lectures  at  our  disposal,  and  also  to  Mr.  S.  H. 
Hodivala  of  Bombay  for  information  he  has 
afforded  us  with  respect  to  Mr.  Anstey's  orig- 
inal manuscript. 

J.  Eeay  Geeene. 

Manor  Lodge, 

Tooting  Graveney,  London,  S.  W. 

December,  1891. 


CONTENTS 


PIKST  PERIOD. 

LECTUBE  PAGE 

I. — OF  LITERATURE  IN  GENERAL — LANGUAGE,    TRADI- 
TION,   RELIGIONS,     RACES THE     GREEKS  :    THEIR 

CHARACTER    IN   HISTORY,    THEIR    FORTUNE,    PER- 
FORMANCE— MYTHOLOGIES — ORIGIN    OF   GODS      .  1 

IL — =HOMER  :     THE    HEROIC     AGES FROM    ^SCHTLUS 

TO   SOCRATES — DECLINE   OF   THE   GREEKS    .  .       16 

III. THE  ROMANS  !  THEIR  CHARACTER,  THEIR  FOR- 
TUNE, WHAT  THEY  DID — FROM  VIRGIL  TO  TAC- 
ITUS  END   OF   PAGANISM  .  .  .  .37 


SECOND  PERIOD. 

IV. — MIDDLE    AGES — CHRISTIANITY  ;    FAITH — INVEN- 
TIONS   PIOUS      FOUNDATIONS POPE      HILDE- 

BRAND CRUSADES TROUB.VDOURS  — NIEBELUN- 

GEN    LIED .       61 


Xll  CONTENTS 


V.  — DANTE — THE    ITALIANS — CATHOLICISM — PURGA- 
TORY     83 

VL-7THE      SPANIARDS CHIVALRY GREATNESS     OF 

THE     SPANISH    NATION — CERVANTES,    HIS    LIFE, 

HIS   BOOK — LOPE CALDERON — PROTESTANTISM 

AND    THE   DUTCH   WAR 102 

VII. — THE    GERMANS WHAT  THEY   HAVE  DONE REF- 
ORMATION  LUTHER — ULRICH     VON     HUTTEN — 

ERASMUS 124: 

Vin. THE    ENGLISH  :    THEIR    ORIGIN,     THEIR      WORK 

AND  DESTINY  —  ELIZABETHAN  ERA SHAKE- 
SPEARE— JOHN  KNOX — MILTON — BEGINNING  OF 
SCEPTICISM 146 


THIED  PERIOD. 

IX. — VOLTAIRE THE  FRENCH  —  SCEPTICISM FROM 

RABELAIS   TO    ROUSSEAU. 

[Of  this  Lecture  no  record  exists.] 

X. EIGHTEENTH      CENTURY     IN      ENGLAND WHIT- 
FIELD  SWIFT STERNE — JOHNSON HUME        .    169 

XL  — CONSUMMATION     OF     SCEPTICISM — ^^'ERTHERISM 

THE    FRENCH    REVOLUTION    ....    186 


CONTENTS  XIU 

FOURTH  PERIOD. 

LECTTTKE  PAGE 

XII. OF    MODEKN  GERMAN  LITERATURE GOETHE  AND 

HIS    WORKS 206 


NOTES 227 


LECTURES 


ON 


THE  HISTORY  OF  LITERATURE 


LECTURE  I. 

^pn7    21th 


FIRST  PERIOD 

Op  Literature  in  General — Language,  Tradition, 
Religions,  Races— The  Greeks  :  Their  Character 
IN  History,  Their  Fortune,  Performance — My- 
thologies—Origin OF  Gods. 

It  must  surety  be  an  interesting  occupation  to  fol- 
low the  stream  of  mind  from  the  periods  at  which 
the  first  great  spirits  of  our  western  world  wrote 
and  flourished,  down  to  these  times.  He  who  would 
pursue  the  investigation,  however,  must  commence 
by  inquiring  what  it  was  these  men  thought  before 
he  inquires  what  they  did ;  for,  after  all,  these  were 
solely  remarkable  for  mind,  thought,  opinion — opin- 
ion which  clothed  itself  in  action,  and  their  opinions 
have  survived  in  their  books.  A  book  affords  mat- 
ter for  deep  meditation.     Upon  their  shelves  books 


3  LITERATURE   IN    GENERAL 

seem  queer,  insignificant  things,  but  in  reality  there 
is  nothing  so  important  as  a  book  is.  It  stirs  up 
the  minds  of  men  long  after  the  author  has  sunk 
into  the  grave,  and  continues  to  exert  its  corre- 
sponding influence  for  ages.  Authors  unhke  he- 
roes, therefore,  do  not  need  to  be  illuminated  by 
others ;  they  are  of  themselves  luminous.  The 
thought  that  was  produced  to-day,  the  pamphlet 
that  was  published  to-day,  are  only,  as  it  were,  re- 
prints of  thoughts  that  have  circulated  ever  since 
the  world  began.  And  we  are  interested  in  its  his- 
tory, for  the  thought  is  alive  with  us,  and  it  lives 
when  we  are  dead. 

There  is  a  very  great  difficulty  in  reducing  this 
generation  of  thought  to  a  perfect  theory,  as  indeed 
there  is  with  everything  else,  except,  perhaps,  the 
stars  only,  and  even  they  are  not  reduced  to  theory  ; 
not  perfectly,  at  least,  for,  although  the  solar  sj's- 
tem  is  quite  established  as  such,  it  seems  doubtful 
whether  it  does  not  in  its  turn  revolve  round  other 
solar  systems,  and  so  any  theory  is,  in  fact,  only 
imperfect.  This  phenomenon,  therefore,  is  not  to 
be  theorized  on  ;  something,  however,  is  necessary 
to  be  done  in  order  to  familiarize  ourselves  with  it. 
We  shall  see  this  great  stream  of  thought,  bearing 
with  it  its  strange  phenomenon  of  literary  produc- 
tions, divide  itself  into  regular  periods  ;  and  we  will 
commence  with  the  facts  to  be  discovered  in  the 
history  of  the  Greeks. 


ORIGIN   OF   THE  GREEKS  3 

The  Greek  records  go  as  far  back  as  1,800  years 
before  our  era,  that  is,  3,600  years  or  so  from  the 
present  time.  But  they  cannot  be  considered  as 
authentic  at  that  antiquity.  When  we  ask  the  ques- 
tion, Who  were  the  first  inhabitants  of  Greece? 
or.  Were  they  the  same  as  that  modern  nation  by 
some  called  Grseci,  by  others,  Hellenes,  and  b}"  us, 
Greeks  ?  we  can  derive  no  clear  account  from  any 
source.  They  seem  to  have  been  called  Pelasgi. 
There  is  a  controversy  w^hether  these  Hellenes  were 
Pelasgi,  or  new  settlers  from  the  East.  They  were 
probably  Pelasgi,  with  whom  thought  had  begun  to 
operate  a  progress  in  science  and  civilization ;  and 
these  gave  their  local  name  Hellenes  to  the  rest, 
just  as  was  the  case  with  the  Angles  and  the  Sax- 
ons. We  have  no  good  history  of  Greece.  This  is 
not  at  all  remarkable.  Greek  transactions  had  never 
anything  alive  ;  no  result  for  us  ;  they  were  dead 
entirely.  The  only  points  which  serve  to  guide  us 
are  a  few  ruined  towns,  a  few  masses  of  stone,  and 
some  broken  statuary.  In  this  point  of  view  we 
can  trace  three  epochs,  not  more,  after  the  introduc- 
tion of  civilized  arts  into  the  country,  and  the  for- 
mation of  societies. 

1.  The  first  is  the  siege  of  Troy,  which  happened 
in  the  twelfth  century,  B.C.,  and  was  instituted  by 
the  Achaioi,  as  they  were  then  called,  or  Hellenes. 
It  seems  that  there  is  evidence  that  they  were  at 
that  time  the  same  as  Pelasgi.     The* siege,  as  is  well 


4  HOMERIC   PERIOD 

known,  is  said  to  have  been  occasioned  by  Paris 
carrying  off  a  Greek  girl,  the  famous  Helen,  wife  of 
Menelaus.  Herodotus  speaks  of  many  such  cases — 
lo,  for  example,  and  Europa.  He  remarks  very 
properly  that  it  is  really  very  foolish  to  go  to  war 
for  such  a  reason,  as  the  lady  is  always  sure  to  be  as 
much  to  blame  herself  as  her  seducer.  Whatever, 
however,  was  the  reason,  this  was  the  first  confed- 
erate act  of  the  Hellenes  in  their  capacity  of  an 
European  people.  The  town  was  taken  and  de- 
stroyed. The  immediate  cause  which  was  assigned 
may  not  have  been  true ;  but,  by  the  European  Pe- 
lasgi,  it  seems  to  have  been  chiefly  ascribed  to  their 
superiority  over  Asia  ;  this  was  the  constant  gesta  of 
the  narrative.  The  eveut  is  also  important  in  giving 
rise  to  the  first  valuable  work  of  antiquity  after  the 
Bible,  the  Homeric  Poems,  comprising  the  Iliad  and 
the  Odyssey. 

Of  the  date  of  600  years  later  we  have  the  marble 
chronicles  now  preserved  in  the  University  of  Ox- 
ford, which  an  Earl  of  Arundel  brought  out  of 
the  East  in  the  reign  of  James  I,  and  which  ar- 
rived here  about  the  year  1627.  They  sufl'ered 
much  during  the  civil  wvars,  and  lay  mutilated  a 
long  time  in  the  garden  of  Arundel  House  at 
Lambeth.  One  of  them  even  was  built  up  by  the 
gardener  into  the  garden  wall.  Among  the  most 
remarkable  was  the  marble  called  the  Chronicle  of 
Paros,  containing  a  record  of  some  very  memorable 


PERSIAN   INVASION  0 

events.  It  is  uncertain  why  it  was  so  called.  Near 
the  spot  where  it  was  found  a  new  colony  was  found- 
ed 264  B.C.,  and,  as  it  was  the  custom  to  erect  these 
records  on  such  occasions,  it  is  presumed  that  the 
above  was  the  date  of  its  erection.  Herodotus  lived 
in  the  fifth  century  b.c,  but  it  was  clean  after  that. 

2.  The  second  epoch  was  that  of  the  Persian  in- 
vasion. Greece  had  then  to  support  itself  against 
the  innumerable  hosts  of  the  East  poured  out 
against  her.  This  is  the  great  gesta  of  Herodotus' 
history :  the  gallant  resistance  of  a  handful  of 
Greeks,  for  they  were  far  from  being  unanimous. 
Their  fate  trembled  in  the  iron  scale  of  destiny  for 
a  while.  At  Thermopylse  Leonidas  repelled  the 
Persians  during  three  days  ;  on  the  fourth,  circum- 
vented by  treachery,  he  was  overwhelmed  with 
numbers,  and  he  and  his  troops  were  cut  to  pieces  ; 
not  a  man  survived,  they  wouldn't  give  up  the  place. 
One  fancies  that  that  monument  must  have  had  a 
wonderful  effect  for  ages  after ;  the  marble  lion  with 
the  inscription,  "  O  stranger !  tell  the  Lacedaemo- 
nians that  we  lie  here  according  to  the  laws."  They 
were  ordered  to  remain,  not  to  quit  the  post,  and 
there  they  lay  forever.  But  Europe  was  ever  after- 
ward superior  to  Persia.  The  Grecian  societies  soon 
afterward  divided  more  and  more  until  they  became 
a  kind  of  federal  republic,  united  only  by  common 
habits,  and  mainly  by  their  religion.  It  is  a  pity 
that  durinjy  this  time  we  have  but  little  information 


6  GREEK    COLONIZATION 

as  to  the  influence  produced  upon  them  by  the 
aspect  of  their  beautiful  country,  its  lofty  mountains 
and  fertile  valleys,  the  gigantic  trees  which  clothed 
the  summits  and  sides  of  their  craggy  precipices, 
and  all  too  beautifully  set  off  by  the  bright  sky 
which  was  shining  upon  them  ;  as  well  as  the  means 
by  which  all  this  was  rendered  serviceable  to  them 
in  the  ways  of  daily  life.  It  is  only  battles  that  are 
marked  by  historians,  but  subjects  like  these  are 
rarely  noticed. 

They  spread  themselves  abroad  in  new  colonies  at 
this  time,  but  there  were  already  Greek  colonies 
even  before  that.  They  had  built  towns  and  cities, 
which  still  exist  on  the  south  coast  of  Italy,  or 
Magna  Grsecia  as  it  is  generally  called.  Indeed,  I 
am  told  that  the  people  in  the  mountains  still  speak 
a  kind  of  Greek  up  in  the  Abruzzi.  They  built 
Marseilles  in  France  before  the  Persian  invasion. 
Herodotus  records  the  Phocean  emigration.  They 
wandered  a  long  time  before  they  could  find  a  con- 
venient spot  for  their  new  settlement ;  but,  to  ex- 
tinguish all  hope  of  return,  their  leader  took  a  red- 
hot  ball  of  iron  and  plunged  it  into  the  sea,  and 
called  the  gods  to  witness  that  he  and  his  followers 
would  never  return  to  Phocea  until  that  ball  of  iron 
should  float  upon  the  surface.  They  afterward 
landed  at  Marseilles,  and  founded  a  flourishing  re- 
public there. 

3.  The  third  great  epoch,  like  the  other  two,  has 


MACEDONIAN    PEKIOD  7 

also  reference  to  the  East.  It  was  the  flower  time 
of  Greece — her  history  is  as  that  of  a  tree  from  its 
saphng  state  to  its  decline  ;  and  at  this  period  she 
developed  an  efflorescence  of  genius  such  as  no 
other  country  ever  beheld,  but  it  speedily  ended  in 
the  shedding  of  her  flowers  and  in  her  own  decay. 
From  that  time  she  has  continued  to  fall,  and 
Greece  has  never  again  been  such  as  she  then  was.- 
About  the  year  330  e.g.  she  was  subjected  to  the 
king  of  a  foreign  state,  Macedon.  Alexander  the 
Great  found  little  trouble  in  ruling  Greece,  en- 
feebled already  by  the  Peloponnesian  war,  a  war  of 
which  one  cannot  see  the  reason,  except  that  each 
contending  party  seems  to  have  striven  merely  for  its 
own  gain,  while  their  country  stood  by  to  see  which 
side  of  the  collision  was  to  grind  it  down.  Philip  of 
Macedon,  a  strong,  active  man,  had  already  got  it 
united  under  him.  Under  Alexander  occurred  the 
memorable  invasion  of  Persia,  when  Greece  ex- 
ploded itself  on  Asia.  He  carried  his  arms  to  the 
banks  of  the  Indus,  founded  kingdoms,  and  left 
them  to  his  followers ;  insomuch  that  they  con- 
tinued a  remarkable  set  of  people  till  long  after- 
ward. Nor  was  it  till  1453  a.d.  that  they  were 
finally  conquered  in  Constantinople. 

This,  then,  is  the  history  of  Greece.  The  siege  of 
Troy,  the  first  epoch,  took  place  in  the  year  1184 
B.C.  The  Battle  of  Marathon,  490  b.c.  ;  and  160 
years  later  came  the  invasion  of  Persia.     Europe  was 


8  LIKENESS   OF   GEEEKS   TO   FRENCH 

henceforth  to  develop  herself  on  an  independent 
footing,  and  it  had  been  so  ordered  that  Greece  was 
to  begin  that.  As  to  their  peculiar  physiognomy 
among  nations,  they  were  in  one  respect  an  ex- 
tremely interesting  peoxDle  ;  but,  in  another,  un- 
amiable  and  weak  entirely.  It  has  been  somewhere 
remarked  by  persons  learned  in  the  speculation  on 
what  is  called  the  doctrine  of  races,  that  the  Pelasgi 
were  of  Celtic  descent.  However  this  may  be,  it  is 
certain  that  there  is  a  remarkable  similarity  in  char- 
acter of  the  French  to  these  Greeks.  Their  first 
feature  was  what  we  may  call  the  central  feature  of 
all  others  existing,  vekemence,  not  exactly  streitgth, 
for  there  was  no  permanent  coherence  in  it  as  in 
strength,  but  a  sort  of  fiery  impetuosity,  a  vehe- 
mence never  anywhere  so  remarkable  as  among  the 
Greeks,  except  among  the  French.  And  there  are 
instances  of  this  both  in  its  good  and  bad  point  of 
view.  As  to  the  bad,  there  is  the  instance  men- 
tioned by  Thucydides  of  the  sedition  in  Corcyra, 
which  really  does  read  like  a  chapter  out  of  the 
French  Revolution,  in  which  the  actors  seem  to  be 
quite  regardless  of  any  moment  but  that  which  was 
at  hand.  Here,  too,  the  lower  classes  were  at  war 
upon  the  higher  or  aristocrats,  as  the  French  would 
have  called  them.  They  suspected  a  design  on  the 
part  of  the  aristocracy  to  carry  them  as  slaves  off  to 
Athens,  and  on  their  side  it  ended  in  the  aristocracy 
being  all  shut  up  in  prison  ;  man  after  man  they 


GREEK    GENTUS  9 

were  brouglit  out  of  the  prison,  and  then  with  stabs 
and  pikes  they  were  massacred  one  after  another 
(this  is  all  told  by  Thucydides)  until  those  within 
the  prison,  finding  what  was  going  on,  would  not 
come  out  when  summoned,  whereupon  the  mob 
fired  arrows  upon  them  until  they  were  all  de- 
stroyed. In  short,  the  whole  scene  recalls  to  the 
reader  the  events  of  September  1792. 

Another  instance,  but  more  justifiable,  was  the 
following : — When  Xerxes  first  invaded  Greece,  an 
Athenian,  Lycidas,  proposed  to  the  citizens  to  sur- 
render the  city,  as  it  was  impossible  to  make  head 
against  the  Persians.  The  Athenians  assembled, 
jostled,  struck,  and  trampled  upon  him  till  he  died. 
The  women  of  the  place,  hearing  this,  went  to  his 
house,  attacked  his  wife  and  children,  and  stabbed 
them  to  death.  There  was  nothing  ever  like  this 
behavior  or  that  at  Corcyra  known  in  other  coun- 
tries in  ancient  times ;  as  among  the  Eomans, 
for  example,  during  their  dominant  period. 

But  connected  with  all  this  savageness  there  was 
an  extraordinary  delicacy  of  taste  and  genius  in 
them.  They  had  a  prompt  dexterity  in  seizing  the 
true  relations  of  objects,  a  beautiful  and  quick  sense 
in  perceiving  the  places  in  which  the  things  lay  all 
round  the  world  which  they  had  to  work  with,  and 
which,  without  being  entirely  admirable,  was  in  their 
own  internal  province  highly  useful.  So  the  French, 
with  their  undeniable  barrenness  of  genius,  have  yet 


10  SPIRIT   OF    HARMONY 

in  a  remarkable  manner  the  faculty  of  expressing 
themselves  with  precision  and  elegance  to  so  singu- 
lar a  degree  that  no  ideas  or  inventions  can  possibly 
become  popularized  till  they  are  presented  to  the 
world  by  means  of  the  French  language^ 

And  this  is  true  of  history,  and  of  all  things  now 
in  the  world,  of  all  philosophy,  and  of  everything 
else  ;  but  in  poetry,  philosophy,  and  all  things,  the 
Greek  genius  displays  itself  with  as  curious  a  felicity 
as  the  French  does  in  frivolous  exercises.  Singing 
or  music  was  the  central  principle  of  the  Greeks, 
not  a  subordinate  one,  and  they  were  right.  What 
is  not  musical  is  rough  and  hard,  and  cannot  be 
harmonized.  Harmony  is  the  essence  of  art  and 
science.  The  mind  moulds  to  itself  the  clay,  and 
makes  it  what  it  will.  The  Pelasgic  architecture, 
which  still  subsists  in  its  huge  walls  of  stone, 
formed  of  immense  bowlders  piled  one  upon  another, 
presents,  I  am  told,  now  at  the  distance  of  3,000 
years  the  evidence  of  most  magnificent  symmetry 
and  an  eye  to  what  is  beautiful.  Their  poems 
are  equally  admirable.  Their  statuary  comprises 
still  the  highest  things  that  we  have  to  show  for 
ourselves  in  that  art.  Phidias,  for  example,  had 
the  same  spirit  of  harmony,  and  the  matter  of  his 
art  was  obedient  to  him.  His  Jupiter  of  Elis  must 
have  been  a  memorable  work,  it  seems  to  me.  Phi- 
dias superintended  the  building  of  that  thing,  the 
Parthenon,  and,  perhaps,  the  Elgin  marbles  received 


PHIDIAS  11 

Lis  correc.tions.  When  he  projected,  however,  his 
Jupiter  of  Elis  his  ideas  were  so  confused  and 
bewildered  as  to  give  him  great  unrest,  and  he 
wandered  about  perplexed  that  the  shape  he  wished 
would  not  disclose  itself.  But  one  night,  after 
struggling  in  pain  with  his  thoughts  as  usual,  and 
meditating  on  his  design,  in  a  dream  he  saw  a  group 
of  Grecian  maidens  approach  with  pails  of  water  on 
their  heads,  who  began  a  song  in  praise  of  Jupiter. 
At  that  moment  the  sun  of  poetry  stared  upon  him 
and  set  free  the  image  which  he  sought  for,  and  it 
crystallized  as  it  were  out  of  his  mind  into  marble, 
and  became  as  symmetry  itself.  This  spirit  of  har- 
mony operated  directly  in  him,  informing  all  parts  of 
his  mind,  thence  transferring  itself  into  statuary,  and 
seen  with  the  eye  and  filling  the  hearts  of  all  people. 

I  shall  now  call  your  attention  to  the  opinions 
entertained  by  the  Greeks  on  all  things  that  con- 
cerned this  world,  or  what  we  call  their  religion. 
Polytheism  seems  at  first  sight  an  inextricable  mass 
of  confusions  and  delusions ;  but  there  was,  no 
doubt,  some  meaning  in  it  for  the  people.  It  may 
be  explained  in  one  of  two  ways.  The  first  is,  that 
the  fable  was  only  an  allegory  to  explain  the  various 
relations  of  natural  facts  (of  spiritual  facts  and 
material),  and  much  learning  has  been  expended  on 
this  theory.  Bacon  himself  wrote  upon  it  in  his 
treatise  "De  Sapientia  Veterum." 

But  I  think  there  is  little  or  nothin*?  to  be  made 


12  MYTHOLOGY 

out  of  that.  To  tell  fabulous  stories  of  tbat  kind 
does  not  seem  a  natural  process  in  the  diffusion  of 
science.  No  man  in  such  a  case  would  have  sat 
down  to  make  out  something  which  all  the  while  he 
knew  to  be  a  lie  ;  no  serious  man  would  do  it.  The 
second  opinion  is,  that  their  gods  were  simply  their 
kings  and  heroes,  whom  they  afterward  deified. 
There  is  more  probability  in  this  theory,  which  is 
called  Euhemerism.  Man  is  always  venerable 
to  man ;  great  men  are  sure  to  attract  worship 
or  reverence  in  all  ages,  and  in  ancient  times 
it  is  not  wonderful  that  sometimes  they  were 
accounted  as  gods ;  for  the  most  imaginative 
of  us  can  scarcely  conceive  the  feelings  with 
which  the  earliest  of  the  human  species  looked 
abroad  on  the  world  around  them.  At  first,  doubt- 
less, they  regarded  nothing  but  the  gratification  of 
their  wants,  as,  in  fact,  wild  peoj^le  do  yet ;  but  the 
man  would  soon  begin  to  ask  himself  whence  he 
was,  what  were  his  flesh  and  blood,  what  he  himself 
was,  who  was  not  here  a  short  time  ago,  who  will 
not  be  here  much  longer,  but  still  existing  a  con- 
scious individual  in  this  immense  universe.  The 
theories  so  formed  would  be  extremely  extravagant, 
and  little  would  suffice  to  shape  the  system  into 
Polytheism  ;  for  it  is  reall}^  in  my  opinion,  a  blas- 
phemy against  human  nature  to  attribute  the  whole 
of  the  system  to  quackery  and  falsehood* 

Divination,  for  instance,  was  the  great  nucleus 


DIVINATION  13 

round  which  Polytheism  formed  itself — the  consti- 
tuted core  of  the  whole  matter.  All  people,  pri- 
vate men  as  well  as  states,  used  to  consult  the  oracle 
of  Dodona  or  Delphi  (which  eventually  became  the 
most  celebrated  of  all)  on  all  the  concerns  of  life. 
Modern  travellers  have  discovered  in  those  places 
pipes  and  other  secret  contrivances,  from  which 
they  have  concluded  that  these  oracles  w^ere  con- 
stituted on  a  principle  of  falsehood  and  delusion. 
Cicero,  too,  said  that  he  was  certain  two  augurs 
could  not  meet  without  laughing,  and  he  was  likely 
to  know,  for  he  had  once  been  an  augur  himself. 
But  I  confess  that  on  reading  Herodotus  there  ap- 
pears to  me  to  have  been  very  little  quackery  about 
it.  I  can  quite  readily  fancy  that  there  was  a  great 
deal  of  reason  in  the  oracle.  The  seat  of  that  at 
Dodona  was  a  deep,  dark  chasm,  into  which  the 
diviner  entered  when  he  sought  the  Deity.  If  he 
was  a  man  of  devout  frame  of  mind  he  must  surely 
have  then  been  in  the  best  state  of  feeling  for  fore- 
seeing the  future,  and  giving  advice  to  others.  No 
matter  how  this  was  carried  on,  by  divination  or 
otherwise,  so  long  as  the  individual  suffered  him- 
self to  be  wrapt  in  union  with  a  higher  being.  I 
like  to  believe  better  of  Greece  than  that  she 
was  completely  at  the  mercy  of  fraud  and  falsehood 
in  these  matters.  So  before  the  Battle  of  Marathon, 
an  Athenian,  Philippides,  set  off  to  Lacedsemon  for 
supplies  ;  he  ran  nearly  the  whole  way.     As  he  was 


14  DESTINY 

travelling  among  the  mountains  near  Tegea  he  heard 
the  God  Pan  calling  out  to  him,  "  Philippides,  \Yhy 
do  the  Athenians  neglect  me?"  He  obtained  the 
succors  demanded,  and  returned  to  Athens  to  find 
his  citizens  victorious,  and  on  his  relating  the  above 
circumstance  a  temple  was  erected  to  Pan,  and  his 
worship  attended  to.  Now,  when  I  consider  the 
frame  of  mind  he  must  have  been  in,  I  have  no 
doubt  that  he  really  heard  in  his  own  mind  that 
voice  of  the  God  of  Nature  upon  the  wild  mountain- 
side, and  that  this  was  not  done  by  quackery  or 
falsehood  at  all.  To  this  sj^stem  there  was  a  deeper 
basis  than  the  mere  plan  of  gods  and  goddesses, 
such  as  Jupiter,  Apollo,  Minerva,  etc.  Subordinate 
functions  only  were  assigned  them.  But,  inde- 
pendently of  their  idolatry,  they  discovered  that 
truth,  which  is  in  every  man's  heart,  and  to  which 
no  thinking  man  can  refuse  his  assent.  They 
recognized  a  destin}^  a  great  dumb  black  power, 
ruling  during  time,  which  knew  nobody  for  its 
master,  and  in  its  decrees  was  as  inflexible  as 
adamant,  and  everyone  knew  that  it  was  there. 
It  was  sometimes  called  Moipa,  or  "allotment," 
"  part,"  and  sometimes  "  the  Unchangeable."  Their 
gods  were  not  always  mentioned  with  reverence. 
There  is  a  strange  document  on  the  point,  the 
Prometheus  of  Jj^schylus.  iEschylus  wrote  three 
plays  of  Prometheus,  but  only  one  has  survived  to 
our  times.    Prometheus  had  introduced  fire  into  the 


PROMETHEUS  .         15 

world,  and  lie  was  punished  for  that.  His  design 
was  to  make  our  race  a  little  less  wretched  than  it 
was.  Personally  he  seems  to  be  a  taciturn  sort  of 
man,  but  what  he  does  speak  seems  like  a  thunder- 
bolt against  Jupiter.  These  miserable  men  were 
wandering  about  in  ignorance  of  the  arts  of  life,  and 
he  taught  them  to  them.  It  was  right  in  him  to  do 
it !  Jupiter  may  launch  his  thunderbolts,  and  do 
what  he  will  with  him.  A  time  is  coming  ;  he 
awaits  his  time  !  Jupiter  can  hurl  him  to  Tartarus, 
his  time  is  coming  too  ;  he  must  come  down  ;  it  is 
all  written  in  the  book  of  Destin3^ 

This  curious  document  really  indicates  the  pri- 
meval qualities  of  man.  So  Herodotus,  who  was  a 
clear-headed,  candid  man,  tells  us  that  a  Scythian 
nation,  the  Getse,  when  it  thundered,  or  the  sky  was 
long  clouded,  used  to  shoot  arrows  in  the  air  against 
the  god,  and  defied  him,  and  were  excessively  an- 
gry with  him.  Another  people,  whom  he  mentions 
with  less  credibility,  made  war  on  the  south  wind  ; 
probably  it  had  blown  on  them  till  it  made  them 
quite  desperate.  The}^  marched  against  it  into  the 
desert,  but  were  never  heard  of  again.  These  are 
things  alien  to  our  ways  of  thinking,  but  they  may 
serve  to  illustrate  Greek  life. 

I  must  here  conclude  my  remarks  on  the  charac- 
ter of  the  Greeks.  In  my  next  lecture  I  shall  take 
a  survey  of  the  history  of  their  literature  from  Ho- 
mer down  to  Socrates. 


LECTUEE  11. 

May   4:th 

FIRST  T'Em.OT>—Co7iHnued 

Homer:    The  Heroic  Ages— From  ^schylus  to  So- 
crates—Decline OF  THE  Greeks. 

We  must  now  take  a  survey  of  Greek  literature, 
although  our  time  does  not  afford  us  much  scope  for 
diverging,  as  we  must  do,  over  a  space  of  more  than 
five  hundred  j^ears. 

The  first  works  which  we  shall  notice  are  the  po- 
ems of  Homer.  These  treat  of  that  event  which,  as 
I  mentioned  in  my  last  lecture,  constitutes  the  first 
great  epoch  of  Grecian  History,  the  Siege  of  Troy. 
The  Iliad,  or  Song  of  Ilion,  consists  of  a  series  of 
what  I  call  ballad  delineations  of  the  various  occur- 
rences which  took  place  then,  rather  than  of  a  nar- 
rative of  the  event  itself ;  for  it  begins  in  the  mid- 
dle of  it,  and,  I  might  say,  ends  in  the  middle  of  it. 
The  Odyssey  relates  the  adventures  and  voyages  of 
Odysseus  or  Ulysses  on  his  return  from  Troy.  Their 
age,  as  indicated  by  the  Arundel  Marbles,  and  still 
more    by  Herodotus,  was    800    years   b.c.     At   all 


HOMER  17 

events,  that  was  the  age  of  the  Iliad,  or  perhaps 
900.  Johannes  von  Miiller  says  of  them  that  they 
are  the  oldest  books  of  importance  after  the  Bible. 
There  are  none  older  even  among  the  Chinese,  for, 
in  spite  of  what  has  been  said  about  their  works, 
there  is  no  evidence  that  any  of  them  are  any 
older  than  the  poems  of  Homer.  Some  there  are 
about  the  same  age,  but  very  insignificant,  such 
as  romances  or  chronicles.  Who  this  Homer  was, 
or  who  was  the  real  author  of  these  poems,  is  al- 
most unknown  to  us.  There  is,  indeed,  a  bust  of 
Homer  in  the  museum  presented  by  the  Earl  of 
Arundel,  and  there  are  one  or  two  other  busts  of 
him  elsewhere  ;  but  we  have  not  the  slightest  evi- 
dence for  believing  that  either  of  them  is  a  por- 
trait. It  is  not  certain  whether  his  poems  were  the 
work  of  one  or  many,  writers.  There  is  a  tradition, 
indeed,  of  a  singer,  'O/xT^po?,  a  beggar  and  blind 
man,  to  whom  they  have  been  attributed ;  and  the 
belief  in  his  identity  was  common  till  1780,  when  in 
Germany,  Wolff,  who  had  been  employed  to  write 
a  Prolegomena  of  a  Glasgow  edition  of  Homer,  for 
tbe  first  time  started  an  opinion  which  has  much 
startled  and  confused  the  learned,  that  there  was 
no  such  man  as  Homer,  and  that  the  Iliad  had 
occupied  a  century  or  more  in  its  comjDosition,  and 
that  it  was  the  work  of  various  itinerant  singers 
or  poets  who  came  to  seek  a  welcome  in  the  courts 
of  different  Grecian  princes ;  for  there  were  at 
2 


18  THE  HOMERIC   CONTROVERSY 

that  time  thousands  of  songs  about  Troy  circulated 
throughout  Greece.  It  was  300  years  after  their 
date  when  the  first  edition  of  Homer's  poems  was 
published  by  the  sons  of  Pisistratus,  Hippias  and 
Hipparchus.  Tins  was  the  first.  Lycurgus,  in- 
deed, is  said  by  Plutarch  to  have  already  made  a 
collection  of  them  ;  but  what  he  says  is  extremely 
vague  and  unsupported.  The  next  edition  was  col- 
lected by  Alexander  the  Great,  which,  wdth  some  al- 
terations, is  our  present  edition.  There  aj^pears  to 
me  to  be  a  great  improbability  that  any  one  would 
compose  an  epic  except  in  writing.  Other  poems 
were  intended  for  recital,  but  this  was  too  long  to  be 
repeated  in  one  sitting  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
would  not  have  been  written  if,  as  was  the  case,  there 
were  then  no  readers.  It  is  also  an  established  fact 
that  Homer  could  not  write.  He  talks  himself  of 
messages  passing  from  one  chief  to  another,  when  it 
is  clear  from  his  own  expressions  that  they  made  use, 
not  of  letters  at  all,  but  of  some  kind  of  hiero- 
glyphics. Indeed,  the  only  argument  in  favor  of 
Homer  being  the  real  author  is  derived  from  the 
common  opinion  on  the  point  and  from  the  unity  of 
the  poem,  of  which  it  was  once  said  that  it  was  as 
unlikely  that  it  should  be  owing  to  an  accidental 
concurrence  of  distinct  writers  as  that,  by  an  acci- 
dental arrangement  of  the  types,  it  should  have 
printed  itself.  But  I  began  myself  some  time  ago 
to  read  the  IHad,  which  I  had   not  looked  at  since 


LACK   OF   UNITY   IN   THE   ILIAD  19 

I  left  school,  and  I  must  confess  that  from  reading 
alone  I  became  completely  convinced  that  it  was 
not  the  work  of  one  man.  Knight  himself,  one  of 
the  warmest  adherents  of  the  other  side,  conceded 
that  the  Odyssey  was  written  by  a  different  hand, 
and  that  the  Iliad,  as  we  have  it,  has  been  much 
altered  by  transcribers.  In  short,  he  is  not  at  all 
strong  for  his  own  side.  But  by  far  the  strongest 
consideration  for  the  opinion  is  produced  by  read- 
ing the  poem  itself.  As  to  its  unit}',  I  confess  that 
it  seems  to  me  that  one  may  cut  out  two  or  three 
books  without  making  any  alteration  in  its  unit}-. 
Its  value  does  not  consist  in  an  excellent  sustaining 
of  characters.  There  is  not  at  all  the  sort  of  style 
in  which  Shakespeare  draws  his  characters  ;  there 
is  simply  the  cunning  man  ;  the  great-headed, 
coarse,  stupid  man  ;  the  proud  man  ;  but  there  is 
nothing  so  remarkable  but  that  any  one  else  could 
have  drawn  the  same  characters  for  the  purpose  of 
piecing  them  into  the  Iliad.  We  all  know  the  old 
Italian  comedy  :  their  Harlequin,  Doctor,  and  Col- 
umbine. There  are  almost  similar  things  in  the 
characters  in  the  Iliad.  Hence,  if  we  may  compare 
great  things  with  small,  we  have  an  analogous  case 
in  this  country's  literature.  We  have  collections  of 
songs  about  Kobin  Hood,  a  character  who  lived  as 
an  outlaw  in  Sherwood  Forest,  and  was  particularly 
famous  in  Nottinghamshire  and  the  north  of  Eng- 
land.    In  the  fourteenth  century  innumerable  bal- 


20  CHARACTER   OF  HOMER*  S   POEMS 

lads  respectiiig  Lim  were  current  in  this  country, 
and  especially  in  the  north,  about  bis  disputes  with 
sheriffs,  and  great  quantities  of  adventures  of  all 
sorts,  which  w^ere  sung,  quite  in  an  independent 
character,  by  fiddlers  and  old  blind  men.  It  is  only 
fifty  years  since  a  bookseller  of  York  published 
those  ballads  in  an  uniform  collection  ;  cut  out  parts 
here  and  put  in  other  parts  there,  and  rendered  the 
whole  to  as  consistent  a  poem  as  the  Iliad.  Now, 
contrasting  the  melodious  Greek  mind  with  the 
not  very  melodious  English  mind,  the  cithara  with 
the  fiddle  (between  which,  by  the  way,  there  is 
strong  resemblance),  and  having  in  remembrance 
that  those  of  the  one  class  were  suug  in  alehouses, 
while  the  others  were  sung  in  kings'  houses,  it 
really  appears  that  Eobin  Hood  ballads  have  re- 
ceived the  very  same  arrangement  as  that  which  in 
other  times  produced  "  the  Tale  of  Troy  divine." 

With  Johannes  von  Miiller,  I  should  say  that  the 
character  of  Homer's  poems  is  the  best  among  all 
poems.  For,  in  the  first  place,  they  are  the  delinea- 
tion of  something  more  ancient  than  themselves  and 
more  simple,  and  therefore  more  interesting  as  be- 
ing the  impressions  of  a  primeval  mind,  the  pro- 
ceedings of  a  set  of  men  our  spiritual  progenitors. 
The  first  things  of  importance  in  the  world's  history 
are  mentioned  there.  Secondly,  they  possess  quali- 
ties of  the  highest  character  of  whatever  age  or 
country.     The  Greek  genius  never  exceeded  what 


21 


was  done  by  the  authors  of  those  poems  which  are 
known  as  the  writings  of  Homer.  Those  quahties 
may  be  reduced  to  these  two  heads  : 

First.  Homer  does  not  seem  to  believe  his  story 
to  be  a  fiction  ;  he  has  no  doubt  of  its  truth.  Now, 
if  we  only  consider  what  a  thing  it  is  to  believe,  we 
shall  see  that  it  must  have  been  an  immense  circum- 
stance in  favor  of  Homer.  I  do  not  meaii  to  say 
that  Homer  could  have  sworn  to  the  truth  of  his 
poems  before  a  jury — far  from  it ;  but  that  he  re- 
peated what  had  survived  in  tradition  and  records, 
and  expected  his  readers  to  believe  them  as  he  did. 
With  regard  to  that  thing  which  we  call  machinery, 
such  as  gods,  visions,  and  the  like,  I  must  recall  to ' 
your  minds  what  I  said  in  my  last  lecture  respect- 
ing the  belief  which  the  Greeks  had  in  their  deities. 
It  is  of  no  moment  to  our  question  that  these  stories 
were  altogether  false,  but  Homer  believed  them  to  be 
true.  Throughout  the  whole  of  Grecian  history  we 
find  that  any  remarkable  man,  any  man  to  whom 
anything  mysterious  attached,  was  regarded  as  of 
the  supernatural.  Their  experience  was  narrow, 
and  men's  hearts  opened  to  the  marvellous,  not  be- 
ing yet  shut  up  by  scepticism.  This  disposition 
was  favorable  to  the  plastic  nature  of  Rumor,  and 
Rumor,  in  fact,  became  afterwards  one  of  the  gods, 
and  temples  were  raised  to  it.  Thus  Pindar  men- 
tions that  Iloo-etSojv  (Neptune)  appeared  on  one  occa- 
sion at  the  Nemsean  games.     Here  it  is  conceivable 


22  RHYTHM    OF   THE   ILIAD 

that  if  some  aged  indiYidual  of  venerable  mien  and 
few  words  had,  in  fact,  come  thither,  his  appearance 
would  have  attracted  attention  ;  people  would  have 
come  to  gaze  upon  him,  and  conjecture  would  have 
been  busy.  It  would  be  natural  that  a  succeeding 
generation  should  actually  report  that  a  god  ap- 
peared upon  the  earth.  Therefore  I  am  convindcl 
that  Homer  believed  his  narratives  to  be  strictly  true. 
Secondly.  The  poem  of  the  Iliad  was  actually  in- 
tended to  be  sung.  It  sings  itself ;  not  only  the 
cadence,  but  the  whole  thought  of  the  poem  sings 
itself,  as  it  were  :  there  is  a  serious  recitative  in  the 
whole  matter.  Now,  if  we  take  these  two  things 
and  add  them  together,  the  combination  makes  up 
the  essence  of  the  best  poem  that  can  be  written. 
In  that  pitch  of  enthusiasm  in  which  the  whole  was 
conceived  the  very  words  sing.  In  the  strong  high 
emotion  the  very  tones  of  the  voice  grow  musical. 
Homer  throws  in  the  expletives  of  some  short  sen- 
tences. With  these  two  qualities,  music  and  be- 
lief, he  places  his  mind  in  a  most  beautiful  brother- 
hood, in  a  sincere  contact  with  his  own  characters  ; 
there  are  no  reticences.  He  allows  himself  to  ex- 
pand with  most  touching  loveliness,  and  occasionally 
it  may  be  with  an  awkwardness  that  carries  its  own 
apology,  upon  all  the  matters  which  come  in  view 
of  the  subject  of  his  work,  and  thus  he  affords  the 
most  decisive  impression  of  the  truly  poetic  nature 
of  his  s:enius. 


THE   ODYSSEY  23 

We  can  see  it  in  bis  very  language,  bis  pbrase- 
ology,  and  tbe  most  minute  details  of  bis  work. 
Let  us  take,  for  instance,  tbe  epitbets  wbicb  be  ap- 
plies to  tbe  objects  of  nature :  "tbe  Divine  sea"  (tbe 
beauty  of  tbat  Divine  sea  was  deep  in  tbe  mind  of 
Homer),  "  tbe  dark  colored  sea ; "  or  to  tbe  king's 
bouses  wbicb  be  admired,  "  tbe  bigb  wainscotted 
bouse,"  *'  tbe  sounding  bouse."  For  a  very  toucb- 
ing  instance,  let  us  see  Agamemnon  wben  be  swears, 
not  merely  by  tbe  gods,  but  by  rivers  and  all  ob- 
jects, stars,  etc.,  and  calls  on  tbem  to  wdtness  bis 
oatb.  He  does  not  say  w^bat  tbey  are,  but  be  feels 
tbat  be  bimself  is  a  mysterious  existence,  standing 
by  tbe  side  of  tbem,  mysterious  existences  ! 

Tbere  is  more  of  cbaracter  in  bis  second  poem, 
supposed  to  bave  been  written  a  century  later  tban 
tbe  Iliad  ;  it  treats  of  a-  bigber  state  of  civilization. 
Tbere  is  an  evident  alteration,  too,  in  tbe  tbeology. 
In  tbe  first  poem  Pallas  is  represented  as  mixing  in 
figbts.  In  tbe  second  poem  sbe  does  not  figbt  at 
all,  but  is  Minerva,  or  ratber  Atbena,  tbe  Goddess 
of  Wisdom.  From  tbe  superior  unity  of  it  as  a 
poem,  it  is  impossible  tbat  it  could  bave  been  writ- 
ten by  many  different  people.  It  makes  a  deeper 
impression  on  one  tban  tbe  Iliad,  tbougb  tbe  genius 
of  it  is  not  greater,  perbaps  not  so  great.  Tbe  beroes 
are  different.  Ulysses  does  not  make  mucb  figure 
in  tbe  Iliad  ;  be  is  merely  drawn  an  adroit,  sbifty, 
cunning  man;   but  in  tbe  Odyssey  be  becomes  of  a 


24  ULYSSES 

tragic  significance.  He  is  not  there  the  man  of 
cunning  and  stratagem,  but  the  "much  enduring," 
a  most  endearing  epithet !  We  have  a  touching  ac- 
count of  all  his  experiences  in  misfortune.  He 
proves  himself  in  the  later  poem  more  thoughtful  of 
those  who  have  perished.  What,  for  example,  can 
be  more  lovely  than  the  scene  when,  after  escaping 
the  man -devouring  Laestrjgonians,  the  snares  of 
Circe,  and  other  perils,  he  comes  to  the  end  of  the 
Old  World,  the  pillars  of  Hercules,  to  consult  Tire- 
sias  the  prophet,  and  after  performing  different  ob- 
lations among  the  surrounding  shades,  he  sees  the 
shade  of  his  mother  Anticlea,  and  poor  Ulysses 
stands  there,  and  there  is  his  mother,  a  pale,  inef- 
fectual shade,  and  he  strives  to  clasp  her  in  his  arms, 
and  he  finds  nothing  but  air  !  In  all  nations  we 
read  and  hear  of  such  feelings  as  that ;  we  go  for 
them  into  the  heart  of  human  nature.  The  same 
sentiment,  for  instance,  we  meet  with  in  those  beau- 
tiful lines  of  the  ''Queen's  Marys."  That,  too,  is 
a  beautiful  burst  of  auger  where  Ulysses,  concealed 
in  his  own  palace,  beholds  the  shameful  waste,  the 
wild  revel  and  riot  of  his  wife's  unworthy  suitors. 
He  is  disguised  as  a  beggar,  and  is  known  to  no 
one  until  his  old  nurse  discovers  him  by  a  scar 
in  his  leg,  which  she  observes  while  washing  his 
feet.  The  suitors  treated  him  with  insult,  and 
flung  bones  and  all  sorts  of  things  at  him.  Lastly, 
they  tried  to  bend  Ulysses'  bow  ;  but  the  old  bow 


SIMILES    OF   HOMER  25 

was  too  strong  for  them.  The  old  beggar  begged 
hard  for  a  trial  ;  he  took  the  bow,  and  with  a  fiery 
kindness  and  love  for  his  old  friend,  examined  it  a 
long  time  without  saying  a  word,  to  see  if  it  were 
in  the  state  in  which  he  left  it.  Then  he  shook 
his  rags,  and,  as  Homer  says,  "he  strode  mightily 
across  the  threshold,"  and  began  to  address  the 
suitors.  "Ye  dogs,"  he  says,  *'ye  thought  that  I 
should  never  return  again  from  Troy,  and  ye  gave 
way  to  your  wickedness,  unmindful  of  gods  above 
and  men  below  ;  but  now  your  time  is  come.  The 
extreme  limits  of  death  await  you."  Then  his  ar- 
rows fell  thick  among  them,  and  I  believe  there  was 
quick  work  made  with  the  suitors  on  that  occasion. 
Numbers  of  traits  like  these  have  been  collected  by 
Goethe.  There  is  an  immense  number  of  similes  in 
Homer.  Sometimes  their  simplicity  makes  us  smile  ; 
but  there  is  great  kindness  and  veneration  in  the 
smile.  Thus,  where  he  compares  Ajax  to  an  ass, 
Homer  does  not  mean  anything  like  insult  in  the 
comparison ;  but  he  means  to  compare  him,  sur- 
rounded as  he  is  by  an  overwhelming  force  of  Tro- 
jans, to  an  ass  getting  into  a  field  of  corn,  while  all 
the  boys  of  the  neighborhood  are  endeavoring  by 
blows  and  shouts  to  drive  him  away  ;  but  the  slow 
ass,  unheeding  them,  crops  away  at  the  quick- 
growing  corn,  and  will  not  leave  off  till  he  has  had 
his  fill.  So  it  is  with  Ajax  and  the  Trojans.  There 
is  a  beautiful  formula  which  he  always  uses  when 


26  THE   HOMERIC    CIVILIZATION 

he  describes  death.  "  He  thumped  down  falliug, 
and  his  arms  jingled  about  him."  Now,  trivial  as 
this  expression  may  at  first  appear,  it  does  convey 
a  deep  sight  and  feeling  of  that  phenomenon.  The 
fall,  as  it  were,  of  a  sack  of  clay,  and  the  jingle  of 
armor,  the  last  sound  he  was  ever  to  make  through- 
out time,  who  a  minute  or  two  before  was  alive 
and  vigoi'ous,  and  now  falls  a  heavy  dead  mass  ! 

But  we  must  quit  Homer.  There  is  one  thing, 
however,  which  I  ought  to  mention  about  Ulysses, 
that  he  is  the  very  model  of  the  type  Greek,  a  per- 
jfect  image  of  the  Greek  genius,  a  shifty,  nimble, 
active  man,  involved  in  difficulties,  but  every  now 
and  then  bobbing  up  out  of  darkness  and  confu- 
sion, victorious  and  intact. 

But  I  must  quit  this  discussion  about  Homer,  and 
I  regret  it  much.  I  must  omit  altogether  the  in- 
sight into  heroic  times  which  he  affords  us  :  that 
farmer-grazier  life  ;  the  pillars  of  their  halls  covered 
with  smoke,  as  he  describes  them  ;  the  stable-yard 
at  the  principal  portal  to  those  kings'  houses,  high 
sounding  houses,  which  he  so  much  admires,  piled 
up  with  sweepings  of  the  stables,  and  other  curious 
delineations  of  manners ;  I  must  leave  all  that. 
Homer  already  betokens  a  high  state  of  civilization  ; 
in  fact,  by  tradition,  and  still  more  by  express 
records,  we  learn  that  the  Greek  genius  had  been 
then  for  1,000  years  working.  As  Horace  says  of 
their  warriors,  that  "  there  were  many  brave  men 


THE   GREEK    LANGUAGE  27 

before  Agamemnon,"  we  may  say  of  their  authors, 
that  there  were  many  beautiful  and  musical  minds 
before  Homer,  of  whom  we  have  no  account.  The 
language,  for  example,  was  the  best  dialect,  the 
most  complete  language  that  was  ever  spoken.  If, 
from  its  precision  and  excellence,  the  French  lan- 
guage is  best  adapted  to  chat  and  to  courts  and 
compliments,  the  Greek  was  no  less  suited  to  every 
kind  of  composition,  down  to  the  pointed  epigram. 
Their  theology,  too  ;  their  polity,  both  of  war  and 
peace,  presupposes  a  civilization  of  1,000  years  or 
longer  before  Homer.  After  Homer,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  some  minstrels,  whom  I  like  to  fancy 
kindred  to  the  Troubadours  (on  which  point  I  shall 
say  more  when  I  come  to  the  Troubadours),  we  have 
nothing  in  the  way  of  literature  for  400  or  500 
years.  It  was  an  age  of  war,  convulsions,  and  mi- 
grations, about  the  Heraclidse  and  others.  Greece 
expanded  itself  in  colonization,  however,  and  other 
enterprises  of  an  important  character.  The  Greek 
mind  at  this  epoch  was  rather  philosophical  than 
poetical.  Pythagoras  and  the  Seven  Wise  Men  were 
of  this  time. 

What  we  have  of  these  philosophers  is  very  vague. 
One  man  speculated  that  the  world  was  made  out  of 
fire  ;  another  attributed  it  to  the  operation  of  water. 
There  is  something  very  enigmatic  about  Pythag- 
oras, the  greatest  man  among  them.  Some  of  his 
precepts  which  are  preserved,  our  want  of  in  forma- 


28  PYTHAGORAS 

tion  makes  us  consider  entirely  absurd  and  ridicu- 
lous. 

We  cannot,  for  instance,  understand  the  reason 
for  his  precept,  abstain  from  beans — "  faba  abstine." 
What  will  immortalize  Pythagoras  is  his  discovery 
of  the  square  of  the  hypothenuse.  It  seems  that  he 
may  rather  be  said  not  to  have  invented  it,  but  to 
have  imported  it,  for  I  understand  the  Hindoos  and 
other  people  of  the  East  have  long  known  it.  It  was 
a  discovery,  however,  which  in  an  advancing  state  of 
science  could  not  remain  unguessed.  But  a  great 
part  of  the  wisdom  of  our  world  was  due  to  Pythag- 
oras, who  acquired  it  in  travelling  over  the  world 
for  information.  It  may  have  been  talent,  and  it  may 
not  be  easy  to  indicate  what  precisely  we  owe  to  him  ; 
but  it  was  not  lost  while  men  were  to  be  found  to 
work  and  improve  on  what  he  had  left  them.  We 
may  observe  the  like  of  many  men.  The  print,  then, 
which  Pythagoras  has  left  of  his  genius  is  the  forty- 
seventh  proposition  of  Euclid.  There  is  also  another 
one  we  owe  to  the  Greeks.  Archimedes  discovered 
that  the  circumference  of  the  sphere  is  three  times 
as  great  as  a  line  drawn  through  the  centre  from  the 
opposite  points  of  the  circle  which  goes  round  it. 

Passing  from  philosophy  to  history,  we  come  to  a 
remarkable  man,  Herodotus.  He  was  not  exactly 
the  next  writer  in  order  of  time,  as  ^schylns  pre- 
ceded him  by  a  few  years.  His  history  is  divided 
by  his  admiring  editors  into  nine  books,  which  they 


HERODOTUS  29 

named  after  the  Nine  Muses,  or  rather  the  division 
was  made  by  him,  while  the  designation  and  admira- 
tion were  theirs.  He  was  a  native  of  Hahcarnassus, 
and  being  early  engaged  in  some  of  the  troubles  of 
that  place,  he  was  obliged  to  leave  it,  and  set  out  on 
his  travels.  He  attentively  studied  the  histories  of 
the  various  countries  he  visited,  from  Egypt  to  the 
Black  Sea,  and  he  put  down  everything  he  learned 
in  writing ;  for  there  were  no  books  then,  and,  as  he 
mentions,  all  the  chronicles  of  importance  were  in- 
scribed on  tablets  of  brass.  At  the  age  of  thirt^'-nine 
he  returned  to  Greece,  and  he  read  his  work  at  the 
Olympic  Games,  where  it  excited  intense  admiration. 
It  is,  properly  speaking,  an  encyclopaedia  of  the  vari- 
ous nations,  and  it  displays  in  a  striking  manner  the 
innate  spirit  of  harmony  that  was  in  the  Greeks.  It 
begins  with  Croesus,  king  of  Lydia.  Upon  some  hint 
or  other,  it  suddenly  goes  off  into  a  digression  on 
the  Persians,  and  then,  apropos  of  something  else, 
we  have  a  disquisition  on  the  Egyptians,  and  so  on. 
At  first  we  feel  somewhat  impatient  of  being  thus 
carried  away  at  the  "  sweet  will""  of  the  author  ;  but 
we  soon  find  it  to  be  the  result  of  an  instinctive  spirit 
of  harmony,  and  we  see  all  these  various  branches  of 
the  tale  come  pouring  down  at  last  in  the  invasion  of 
Greece  by  the  Persians.  It  is  that  spirit  of  order 
which  has  constituted  him  the  j3rose  poet  of  his  coun- 
try. It  is  curious  to  see  the  world  he  made  for  him- 
self.    There  is,  in  g-eneral,  not  a  more  veracious  man, 


30  COMBINED   HISTORY  AND   FABLE 

a  more  intelligeut  man,  than  Herodotus.  We  see, 
as  in  a  mirror,  that  what  he  writes  from  his  own  ob- 
servation is  quite  true.  But  when  he  does  not  pro- 
fess to  know  the  truth  of  his  narratives,  it  is  curious 
to  see  the  sort  of  Arabian  Tales  which  he  collects  to- 
gether— of  the  nation  of  one-e^^ed  men,  of  the  Female 
Eepublic,  the  Amazons,  of  the  people  who  live  under 
an  air  always  black  with  feathers,  the  Cimmerians ; 
yet  even  here  the  man's  natural  shrewdness  is  often 
evinced,  as  when  he  conjectures  that  the  feathers  may 
have  been  only  falling  snow-flakes  ;  and  thus  dying 
away  gradually  from  authentic  history  into  the  fabu- 
lous. He  was  a  good-natured  man,  not  at  all  against 
the  Persians  ;  but  still  there  is  an  emphasis  in  the 
way  he  reports  things,  where  the  war  with  Persia  is 
concerned,  and  in  the  speeches  which  he  attributes 
to  his  characters,  that  shows  the  Greek  feeling  he 
had  in  him.  He  mentions  with  very  little  reproof 
the  Lacedaemonian  irregularity  ;  how  the  people  took 
the  Persian  heralds  who  came  to  demand  earth  and 
water  in  token  of  submission,  and  flung  them  into  a 
deep  w^ell,  and  told  tliem  that  they  would  find  both 
there  in  plenty.  His  account  is  the  only  one  we  have 
of  that  war.  It  is  mainly  through  him  that  we  be- 
come acquainted  with  Themistocles,  that  model  of 
the  type  Greek  in  prose  as  Ulysses  was  in  song.  He 
lived,  too,  in  that  which  I  have  called  the  Flower 
Period  of  Greece,  fifty  years  after  the  Persian  in- 
vasion, or  445  B.C.,  which,  counting  in  the  whole  100 


TIIEMISTOCLES  31 

years,  was  the  most  brilliant  period  of  Grecian  history. 
Themistocles  was  certainly  one  of  the  greatest  men 
in  the  world.  Had  it  not  been  for  him,  the  Persians 
would  have  unquestionably  conquered  Greece.  It  is 
curious  to  observe  the  vacillations  of  the  Greeks  at 
this  period.  The  Greeks  wished  to  run  and  not  to 
fight  at  all.  Even  after  Leonidas  had  so  gallantly 
perished,  Themistocles  had  great  difficulty  in  per- 
suading them  not  to  take  to  flight  in  their  ships  ;  if 
once  they  went  to  sea,  he  said,  all  was  lost.  And 
then  his  reply  to  Eurybiades,  which  has  been  by 
some  censured,  appears  to  me  to  have  been  one  of 
the  grandest  ever  made  by  man.  Eurybiades,  in  the 
heat  of  dispute,  shook  his  staff  in  a  menacing  manner 
at  him.  "Strike,  but  hear,"  was  the  only  return  he 
made.  To  have  drawn  forth  the  sword  by  his  side, 
and  to  have  smote  him  dead  for  such  an  insult,  would 
have  been  no  more  than  natural ;  but  anyone  could 
have  done  that.  A  poor  drayman  in  a  pothouse 
might  have  done  it ;  but  to  forbear,  to  waive  his  own 
redress  in  order  to  extinguish  resentments,  and  keep 
the  troops  united  for  his  country's  sake,  this  appears 
to  me  truly  great !  Like  Ulysses,  he  displayed  an 
uncommon  degree  of  dexterity  on  occasions.  For 
instance,  when  he  was  chased  out  of  Greece  he  be- 
took himself  to  his  worst  enemy,  the  king  of  the  Per- 
sians, whose  armies  he  had  destroyed,  and  who  had 
offered  a  price  for  his  head,  but  who  now  had  the 
magnanimity  to  do  him  no  wrong.     At  his  first  au- 


32  ^SCHYLUS 

dience  the  king  asked  bim  what  he  thought  of  Greece. 
Themistocles,  who  felt  that  he  knew  nothing  at  all 
that  he  could  answer  to  such  a  question,  replied 
adroitly  "  that  speech  was  like  a  Persian  carpet  rolled 
up,  which  was  full  of  beautiful  colors  and  images, 
but  which  required  to  be  unrolled  and  spread  out 
before  the  colors  or  the  figures  would  be  seen  and 
aj)preciatecl.  He  therefore  requested  time  to  acquire 
a  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  Persian  tongue  to  be 
able  to  afford  the  king  the  information  he  sought  in 
one  single  view,  and  not  in  a  detached,  disjointed 
fashion."     The  answer  satisfied  the  king. 

Contemporary  with  Themistocles,  and  a  little 
prior  to  Herodotus,  Greek  tragedy  began.  J^^schy- 
lus  I  define  to  have  been  a  truly  gigantic  man  (I 
mean  by  this  much  more  than  the  mere  trivial  figure 
of  elocution  usually  expressed  by  the  word  gigan- 
tic), one  of  the  largest  characters  ever  known,  and 
all  whose  movements  are  clumsy  and  huge,  like 
those  of  a  son  of  Anak.  In  short,  his  character  is 
just  that  of  Prometheus  himself  as  he  has  described 
him.  I  know  no  more  pleasant  thing  than  to  study 
-^schylus.  You  fancy  that  you  hear  the  old  dumb 
rocks  speaking  to  you  of  all  things  they  had  been 
thinking  of  since  the  world  began,  in  their  wild, 
savage  utterances.  His  Agamemnon  opens  finely 
with  the  w^atchman  on  the  top  of  a  high  tower, 
where  he  has  been  waiting  a  year,  day  and  night, 
for  the  expected  telegraph   of   the  success   of  his 


SOPHOCLES  33 

countrymen.  All  at  once,  while  he  is  yet  speaking, 
the  fire  begins  blazing.  It  is  a  very  grand  scene  ; 
Clytemnestra  afterward  describes  most  graphically 
that  signal  fire,  consuming  the  dry  heath  on  Mount 
Ida,  then  prancing  over  the  billows  of  the  ocean, 
reflected  from  mountain  top  to  mountain  top,  and 
lastly  coming  to  Salamis.  ^schylus  had  himself 
borne  arms,  and  he  must  have  been  a  terrible  fright, 
quite  a  Nem?ean  lion  ;  and  one  says  to  oneself,  when 
one  reads  his  descriptions,  "  Heaven  help  the  Per- 
sians who  had  to  deal  with  ^schylus."  It  is  said 
that  when  composing  he  had  on  a  look  of  the 
greatest  fierceness.  He  has  been  accused  of  bombast. 
From  his  obscurity  he  is  often  exceedingly  difficult ; 
but  bombast  is  not  the  word  at  all.  His  words  come 
up  from  the  great  volcano  of  his  heart,  and  often 
he  has  no  voice  for  it,  and  it  copulates  his  words 
together  and  tears  his  heart  asunder. 

The  next  great  dramatist  is  Sophocles,  ^schylus 
had  found  Greek  tragedy  in  a  cart,  under  the  charge 
of  Thespis,  a  man  of  great  consideration  in  his  day, 
but  of  whom  nothing  remains  to  us,  and  he  made  it 
into  the  regular  drama.  Sophocles  completed  the 
work ;  he  was  of  a  more  cultivated  and  chastened 
mind  than  ^schylus.  He  translated  it  into  a  choral 
peal  of  melody,  ^schylus  only  excels  in  his  grand 
bursts  of  feeling.  The  Antigone  of  Sophocles  is  the 
finest  thing  of  the  kind  ever  sketched  by  man. 

Euripides,  the  next  great  dramatist,  who  has 
3 


34  EURIPIDES 

sometimes  been  likened  to  Eacine,  and  sometimes 
to  Corneille  (although  I  cannot  see  much  resem- 
blance to  Corneille  at  least),  carried  his  compositions 
occasionally  to  the  very  verge  of  disease,  and  dis- 
plays a  distinct  commencement  of  the  age  of  specu- 
lation and  scepticism.  He  writes  often  for  the 
effect's  sake,  not  as  Homer  or  ^schylus,  rapt  away 
in  the  train  of  action  ;  but  how  touching  is  effect 
so  produced.  He  was  accused  of  impiety.  In  a 
sceptical  kind  of  man  these  two  things  go  together 
very  often — impiety  and  desire  of  effect.  There  is  a 
decline  in  all  kinds  of  literature  when  it  ceases  to 
be  poetical  and  becomes  speculative.  Socrates  was 
the  emblem  of  the  decline  of  the  Greeks.  His  was 
the  mind  of  the  Greeks  in  its  transition  state  ;  he 
was  the  friend  of  Euripides.  It  seems  strange  to 
call  him  so.  I  willingly  admit  that  he  was  a  man 
of  deep  feeling  and  moralit}'  ;  bat  I  can  well  under- 
stand the  idea  which  Aristophanes  had  of  him,  that 
he  was  a  man  going  to  destroy  all  Greece  with  his 
innovations.  To  understand  this,  we  have  only  to 
go  back  to  what  I  said  in  my  last  lecture  on  the  pe- 
culiar character  of  the  Greek  system  of  religion — 
the  crown  of  all  their  beliefs.  The  Greek  system, 
you  will  remember,  was  of  a  great  significance  and 
value  for  the  Greeks.  Even  the  most  absurd -look- 
ing part  of  the  whole,  the  Oracle,  this  too,  was 
shown  to  have  been  not  a  quackery,  but  the  result 
of  a  sincere  belief  on  the  part  of  the  priests  them- 


SOCRATES  35 

selves.  No  matter  what  you  call  the  process,  if  the 
mail  believed  iu  what  he  was  about,  and  listened  to 
his  faith  in  a  higher  power,  surely  by  looking  into 
himself,  apart  from  earthly  feeling,  he  would  be  in 
that  frame  of  mind  by  far  the  best  adapted  for  judg- 
ing correctly  and  wisely  of  the  f  utui"fe.  They  saw 
the  most  pious,  intelligent,  and  reverend  among 
them  join  themselves  to  this  system,  and  thus  was 
formed  a  sort  of  rude  pagan  church  to  the  people. 
There  were  also  the  Greek  games,  celebrated  in  hon- 
or of  the  gods,  and  under  the  Divine  sanction.  We 
shall  find  that  the  Greek  religion,  in  short,  did  es- 
sential service  to  the  Greeks.  The  mind  of  the 
whole  nation  by  its  means* obtained  a  strength  and 
coherence.  If  I  may  not  be  permitted  to  say  that 
through  it  all  the  nation  became  united  to  the  Di- 
vine Power,  I  may,  at  any  rate,  assert  that  the  high- 
est considerations  and  motives  thus  became  familiar 
to  each  person,  and  were  put  at  the  very  top  of  his 
mind ;  but  about  Socrates'  time  this  devotional 
feeling  had  in  a  great  measure  given  way.  He  him- 
self was  not  more  sceptical  than  the  rest ;  he  shows 
a  lingering  kind  of  awe  and  attachment  for  the  old 
religion  of  his  country,  and  often  we  cannot  make 
out  whether  he  believed  in  it  or  not.  He  must  have 
have  had  but  a  painful  intellectual  life — a  painful 
kind  of  life  altogether,  one  would  think.  He  was 
the  son  of  a  statuary,  and  was  originally  brought  up 
in  that  art ;  but  he  soon  forsook  it,  and  appeared  to 


36  DECLINE   OF   GREEK   GENIUS 

give  up  all  doings  with  tlie  world  excepting  such  as 
would  lead  to  its  spiritual  improvement.  From 
that  time  he  devoted  himself  to  the  teaching  of  mo- 
rality and  virtue,  and  he  spent  his  life  in  that  hind 
of  mission.  I  cannot  say  that  there  was  any  evil  in 
this  ;  but  it  does  seem  to  me  to  have  been  of  a  char- 
acter entirely  unprofitable.  I  have  a  great  desire  to 
admire  Socrates,  but  I  confess  that  his  writings 
seem  to  be  made  up  of  a  number  of  very  wire- 
drawn notions  about  virtue.  There  is  no  conclusion 
in  him  ;  there  is  no  word  of  life  in  Socrates  !  He 
was,  however,  personally  a  coherent  and  firm  man. 
After  him  the  nation  became  more  and  more  sophis- 
tical The  Greek  genius  lost  its  originality  ;  it  lost 
its  poetry,  and  gave  way  to  the  spirit  of  speculation. 
Alexander  the  Great  subdued  them,  and  though 
they  fought  well  under  him,  and  though  manufact- 
ures and  so  forth  flourished  for  a  long  time  after- 
ward, not  another  man  of  genius  of  any  very  re- 
markable quality  appeared  in  Greece. 


LECTURE  III. 

May  1th 

FIKST  V'^mOD— Continued 

The  Romans:  Their  Character,  Their  Fortune, 
What  They  Did — From  Virgil  to  Tacitus  —  End 
OP  Paganism, 

We  have  now  been  occupied  some  two  days  in 
endeavoring  to  obtain  a  view  of  the  practical, 
spiritual  way  of  life  among  the  Greeks.  I  shall  now 
endeavor  to  draw  this  matter  to  a  conclusion,  the 
survey  of  the  most  ancient  period  of  this  our  West- 
ern Europe. 

We  pass  now  to  the  Romans.  We  may  say  of 
this  nation  that,  as  the  Greeks  may  be  called 
the  children  of  antiquity,  from  their  naivete,  and 
gracefulness,  while  their  whole  history  is  an  aurora, 
the  dawn  of  a  higher  culture  and  civilization  ;  so 
the  Romans  were  the  men  of  antiquity,  and  their 
history  a  glorious,  warm,  laborious  day,  less 
beautiful  and  graceful,  no  doubt,  than  the  Greeks, 
but  most  essentially  useful. 

We   have  small  time  or  space  to  enter  largely 


38  EISE   OF   THE   KOMANS 

into  the  discussion  of  Roman  ways  of  thinking  ;  but 
it  is  a  fortunate  coincidence  that  the  Romans,  in 
their  special  aspect,  do  not  require  much  discussion. 
The  Roman  Hfe  and  the  Roman  opinions  are  quite 
a  sequel  to  those  of  the  Greeks — a  second  edition, 
we  may  say,  of  the  Pagan  system  of  belief  and 
action.  As  authors  or  promulgators  of  books, 
they  will  require  comparatively  little  of  our  atten- 
tion. 

The  first  appearance  of  the  Romans,  their  enter- 
ing on  the  succession  of  the  Greeks,  is  very  pict- 
uresque. The  Tarentines  did  certainly  send — 
these,  too,  were  Greeks,  from  of  old  inhabitants  of 
Magna  Grsecia,  of  which  I  spoke  in  my  first  lecture 
— the  Tarentines  sent  certainly  embassies  to  Pyr- 
rhus,  the  king  of  Epirus,  in  the  year  280  b.c.  He 
was  an  ambitious,  martial  prince,  bent  on  conquer- 
ing everybody,  and  therefore  well  suited  for  their 
wishes  ;  they  entreated  him  to  come  over  and  assist 
them  against  a  people  called  Romans — some  bar- 
barians of  that  name.  Pyrrhus  embarked,  landed, 
and  gave  battle  to  the  Romans.  According  to  Plu- 
tarch, when  he  saw  them  forming  themselves  in 
order  of  battle,  he  said,  "Why,  these  barbarians  do 
not  fight  like  barbarians !  "  and  he  accordingly  after- 
ward found  out  to  his  cost  that  they  did  not  fight 
like  barbarians  at  alL  A  few  years  later  he  was 
worsted  by  the  Romans,  and  again  after  that  his 
forces  were  comxDletely  destroyed  in  another  engage- 


THEIR   HISTORIC   MYTHS  39 

ment.  He  himself  said  that,  "with  him  for  their 
general  and  Komans  for  soldiers,  he  would  conquer 
the  world." 

One  hundred  years  after  this  Greece  itself  was 
completely  subdued  by  the  Romans ;  in  the  year 
before  Christ  280,  the  war  with  Pyrrhus  occurred. 
The  Greek  life  was  shattered  to  pieces  against  the 
harder,  stronger  life  of  the  Eomans.  Corinth  was 
taken  and  destroyed.  Greece  had  degenerated  ;  100 
years  before  Alexander,  when  Socrates  died,  we  saw 
symptoms  of  not  at  all  a  healthy  state  of  Greek 
existence ;  and  now,  as  Corinth  was  taken  and 
burned,  and  even  Egypt  with  her  Ptolemies,  and 
Antioch  with  her  Seleucidse,  fell  successively  into 
the  power  of  the  Romans,  it  was  just  as  a  beautiful 
crystal  jar  becomes  dashed  to  pieces  upon  the  hard 
rocks,  so  inexpressible  was  the  force  of  the  strong 
Roman  energy.  According  to  their  own  account 
they  had  already  been  established  280  years  before 
that  event,  or  750  e.g.;  but  nothing  is  certainly 
known  of  them  before  that  time.  It  is  now  pretty 
well  understood  that  their  ancient  historians  were 
all  Greeks,  who  adopted  the  annals  of  those  who 
conquered  them.  Not  long  ago  that  which  had 
been  already  suspected  by  antiquarians  and  learned 
men  was  made  good  to  demonstration  by  a  German 
scholar,  of  whom  you  have  no  doubt  all  heard, 
Niebuhr,  that  all  that  story  in  Livy  of  Romulus 
and  Remus,  the  two  infants  who  were  thrown  into 


40  ITALIAN   PEOPLES 

the  Tiber  and  stranded  on  its  banks,  it  being  then 
the  time  of  flood,  and  their  being  suckled  by  a  she- 
wolf,  and  also  that  story  of  the  kings  Tarquiu,  are 
nothing  after  all  but  a  myth,  or  traditional  tale, 
with  a  few  faint  vestiges  of  meaning  in  it,  but  of  no 
significance  for  the  historian  ;  at  least,  it  refuses  to 
yield  it  up  to  him.  As  to  Niebuhr  himself,  he  has 
accumulated  a  vast  quantity  of  quotations  and  other 
materials,  and,  in  short,  his  book  is  altogether  a 
laborious  thing ;  but  he  affords,  after  all,  very  little 
light  on  that  early  period.  One  does  not  find  that 
he  makes  any  conclusion  out  except  destruction  ; 
and,  after  a  laborious  perusal  of  his  work,  we  are 
forced  to  come  to  the  conclusion  that  Niebuhr 
knew  no  more  of  the  history  of  that  period  than 
I  do. 

No  doubt  some  human  individual  built  a  house  for 
himself  in  the  neighborhood  of  what  must  have  then 
been  a  desert,  overgrown  with  trees  and  shrubs — 
perhaps  near  to  the  old  fountain,  called  afterward 
the  Fountain  of  Juturna,  and  probably  even  then  in 
existence— one  of  the  old  fountains  of  the  earth  ;  but 
who  he  was,  or  how  the  work  went  on,  we  do  not 
know,  except  that  it  became  the  most  famous  town 
in  the  world  except  Jerusalem,  and  destined  to 
make  the  largest  records  of  any  town.  Niebuhr  has 
shown  that  the  Eomans  evince  the  characters  of  two 
distinct  species  of  people.  First,  there  are  the  Pe- 
lasgi,  a  people  inhabiting  the  lower  part  of  Italy 


CHARACTER  41 

from  of  old  ;  the  same  race  as  we  have  seen  in 
Greece,  where  they  had  akeady  become  Hellenes. 
Secondly,  there  were  the  Etruscans  or  Tuscans,  an 
entirely  different  race.  Johannes  von  Miiller  sup- 
poses them  to  be  northern  Teutonic  or  Gothic. 
They  are  known  by  various  remains  of  art,  the  terra 
cotta,  baked  earth.  Wiukelmanu  describes  these 
remains  to  be  of  an  Egyptian  character  from  their 
gloomy  heaviness,  austerity,  and  sullenness.  To  the 
last  moment  the  Etruscans  continued  to  be  the 
Haruspices  of  the  Romans.  They  themselves  were 
men  of  a  gloomy  character,  very  different  from  the 
liveliness  and  gracefulness  of  the  Greeks.  In  the 
Romans  we  have  the  traces  of  these  two  races  joined 
together  ;  the  one  formed  the  noblesse,  the  other 
the  commonalty.  The  main  feature,  independently 
of  their  works  of  art,  which  we  observe  in  the  old 
Etruscans  is  that  they  were  an  agricultural  people, 
endowed  with  a  sort  of  sullen  energy,  which  is 
shown  by  the  way  in  which  they  drained  out  lakes 
and  marshes  encumbering  the  soil,  and  these  drains, 
I  am  told,  are  to  be  traced  still ;  and  in  the  Roman 
agricultural  writers,  such  as  Cato,  Varro,  and  Colu- 
mella, we  meet  with  many  old  precepts  which  seem 
quite  traditional. 

We  gather  from  these  sources  evidence  of  an  in- 
tensely industrious  thrift,  a  kind  of  vigorous  thrift 
which  was  in  that  people.  Thus,  with  respect  to  the 
ploughing  of  the  earth,  they  express  it  to  be  a  kind 


42  RELIGION    OF   THE    ROMANS 

of  blasphemy  against  Nature  to  leave  a  clod  un- 
brokeD,  and  I  believe  that  it  is  considered  still  to  be 
good  husbandry  to  pulverize  the  soil  as  much  as 
possible.  Now  this  feeling  was  the  fundamental 
characteristic  of  the  Roman  people  before  they  were 
distinguished  as  conquerors. 

Thrift  is  a  quality  held  in  no  esteem,  and  is  gen- 
erally regarded  as  mean ;  it  is  certainly  mean 
enough,  and  objectionable  from  its  interfering  with 
all  manner  of  intercourse  between  man  and  man. 
But  I  say  that  thrift,  well  understood,  includes  in 
itself  the  best  virtues  that  a  man  can  have  in  this 
world  ;  it  teaches  him  self-denial,  to  postpone  the 
present  to  the  future,  to  calculate  his  means  and  to 
regulate  his  actions  accordingly.  Thus  understood, 
it  includes  all  that  man  can  do  in  his  vocation. 
Even  in  its  worst  state  it  indicates  a  great  people,  I 
think.  The  Dutch,  for  example  (there  is  no  stronger 
people),  the  people  of  New  England,  the  Scotch — all 
great  nations  !  In  short,  it  is  the  foundation  of  all 
manner  of  virtue  in  a  nation.  Connected  with  this 
principle,  there  was  in  the  Roman  character  a  great 
seriousness  and  devoutness,  and  it  was  natural  that 
there  should  be.  The  Greek  religion  was  light  and 
sportful  compared  to  the  Roman.  The  Roman  dei- 
ties were  innumerable  ;  Varro  enumerates  30,000 
divinities.  Their  notion  of  fate,  which  we  observed 
was  the  central  element  of  Paganism,  was  much  more 
productive  of  consequences  than  the  Greek  notion. 


METHOD    OF   THE   ROMANS  43 

and  it  depended  entirely  on  the  original  character 
which  had  been  given  to  this  people.  Their  notion 
was  that  Kome  was  alwaj's  meant  to  be  the  capital 
of  the  whole  world  ;  that  right  was  on  the  side  of 
every  man  who  was  with  Rome,  and  that  therefore 
it  was  their  duty  to  do  everything  for  Rome.  This 
belief  tended  very  principally  to  produce  its  own 
fulfilment ;  nay,  it  was  itself  founded  on  fact.  "Did 
not  Rome  do  so  and  so  ?  "  they  would  reason.  That 
stubborn  grinding  down  of  the  globe  which  their 
ancestors  practised — ploughing  the  ground  fifteen 
times  to  make  it  produce  a  better  crop  than  if  it 
were  ploughed  fourteen  times  was  afterward  carried 
on  by  the  Romans  in  all  the  concerns  of  their  ordi- 
nary life,  and  by  it  they  raised  themselves  above  all 
other  people. 

Method  was  their  great  principle,  just  as  har-\ 
mony  was  that  of  the  Greeks.  The  method  of  the 
Romans  was  a  sort  of  harmony,  but  not  that  beau- 
tiful, gi-aceful  thing  which  was  the  Greek  harmony. 
Theirs  was  the  harmonj^  of  plans — an  architectu- 
ral harmony,  which  was  displayed  in  the  arranging 
of  practical  antecedents  and  consequences.  Their 
whole  genius  was  practical.  Speculation  with  them 
was  nothing  in  the  comparison.  Their  vocation 
was  not  to  teach  the  sciences — what  sciences  they 
knew  they  had  received  from  the  Greeks — but  to 
teach  practical  wisdom  ;  to  subdue  people  into 
polity.     Pliny   declares    that   he    cannot    describe 


44  CIVILIZATION 

Rome.  "  So  great  is  it  that  it  appears  to  make 
heaven  more  illustrious,  and  to  bring  the  whole 
world  into  civilization  and  obedience  under  its  au- 
thority," This  is  what  it  did.  It  had  gone  on  for 
300  years,  fighting  obscurely  with  its  neighbors, 
and  getting  one  state  after  another  into  its  power, 
when  the  defeat  of  Pyrrhus  gave  it  all  Italy,  and 
rendered  that  country  entirely  Eome.  Some  have 
thought  that  the  Romans  had  done  nothing  else 
but  fight  to  establish  their  dominion  where  they 
had  not  the  least  claim  of  right,  and  that  they 
were  a  mere  nest  of  robbers  ;  but  this  is  evident- 
ly a  misapprehension.  Historians  have  generally 
managed  to  write  down  such  facts  as  are  apt  to 
strike  the  memory  of  the  vulgar,  while  they  omit 
the  circumstances  which  display  the  real  character 
of  the  Romans.  The  Romans  were  at  first  an  agri- 
cultural people.  They  b.uilt,  it  appears,  their  barns 
within  their  walls  for  protection  ;  but  they  got 
incidentally  into  quarrels  wdth  other  neighboring 
states,  and  it  is  not  strange  that  they  should  have 
taken  the  oj^portunity  to  compel  them  by  force  to 
adopt  their  civilization,  such  as  it  was,  in  prefer- 
ence to  the  mere  foolish  and  savage  method  of  their 
own.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  Roman  was  a 
mild  kind  of  discipline  ;  far  from  that.  It  was  es- 
tablished only  by  hard  contests  and  fighting  ;  but  it 
was  of  all  the  most  beneficial.  In  spite  of  all  that 
has  been  said  and  ought  to  be  said  about  liberty,  it 


PUNIC   WARS  45 

is  true  liberty  to  obey  the  best  personal  guidance, 
either  out  of  our  own  head  or  out  of  that  of  some 
other.  No  one  would  wdsh  to  see  some  fool  wan- 
dering about  at  his  own  will,  and  without  any  re- 
straint or  direction  ;  we  must  admit  it  to  be  far  bet- 
ter for  him  if  some  wise  man  were  to  take  charge  of 
him,  even  though  by  force,  although  that  seems 
but  a  coarse  kind  of  operation.  But  fighting  was 
not  at  all  the  fundamental  principle  in  their  con- 
quests ;  it  w^as  their  superior  civilization  which  at- 
tracted the  surrounding  nations  to  their  centre.  If 
their  course  had  been  entirely  unwise,  all  the  world 
would  have  risen  in  arms  against  the  domineering 
t3'rants  forever  claiming  to  be  their  rulers  where 
they  had  no  right  at  all,  and  their  power  could  not 
have  subsisted  there  as  it  did- 

After  they  had  conquered  Pyrrhus,  and  before 
their  conflict,  which  took  place  a  century  after  that, 
with  Greece,  the  event  occurred  which  was  the 
crowning  phenomenon  of  their  history.  They 
found  their  way  into  the  neighboring  island  of 
Sicily,  and  there  they  met  with  the  Carthaginians, 
another  ancient  state,  of  great  power  and  prosper- 
ity, and,  as  far  as  probabilities  went,  more  likely  to 
subject  the  whole  world  than  Eome  herself  was. 
But  it  was  not  so  ordered.  A  collision  ensued  be- 
tween them,  w^hich  lasted  120  years,  and  constituted 
the  three  Punic  Wars.  It  was  the  hardest  struggle 
Rome  ever  had — the  hardest  that  ever  was.     The 


46  THE   CAKTHAGINIANS 

Carthaginians  were  as  obstinate  a  people  as  the 
Romans  themselves.  They  were  of  the  race  called 
Punic,  Phoenic,  or  Phoenician,  an  Oriental  people  of 
the  family  now  called  Semitic  because  descended 
from  Sem  ;  the  same  kind  of  people  as  the  Jews, 
and  as  distinguished  as  Jew^s  for  being  a  stiff- 
necked  people.  I  most  sincerely  rejoice  that  they 
did  not  subdue  the  Romans,  but  that  the  Romans 
got  the  better  of  them.  We  have  indications  which 
show  that,  compared  to  the  Romans,  they  were  a 
mean  people,  who  thought  of  nothing  but  commerce, 
would  do  anything  for  money,  and  w-ere  exceedingly 
cruel  in  their  measures  of  aggrandizement,  and  in 
all  their  measures.  Their  rites  were  of  a  kind  per- 
fectly horrid  ;  their  religion  was  of  that  sort  so 
often  denounced  in  the  Bible,  with  which  the  Jews 
were  to  have  nothing  to  do.  In  the  siege  of  Car- 
thage the  Romans  relate  that  they  offered  their  chil- 
dren to  Bel,  who  is  the  same  as  Moloch,  "  making 
them  to  pass  through  the  fire  unto  Moloch,"  in  the 
language  of  Scripture,  for  they  had  a  statue  of  the 
god  in  metal,  which  was  heated  red-hot,  and  they 
flung  these  hapless  wretches  into  his  outspread 
arms.  Their  injustice  was  proverbial ;  the  expres- 
sion "  Punic  faith  "  was  well  justified  by  the  facts. 
This  people,  however,  determined  to  exert  their 
whole  strength  against  the  Romans. 

Hannibal,  whom   Napoleon   conceived  to  be  the 
greatest  captain,  the  greatest  soldier   of  antiquity. 


HANNIBAL  47 

was  certainly  a  man  of  wonderful  talent  and  tenac- 
ity, maintaining  himself  for  sixteen  years  in  Italy 
in  spite  of  all  the  Roman  power.  He  was  scanda- 
lously treated  on  his  return  by  his  own  countrymen. 
He  was  a  most  unfortunate  man  ;  banished  from 
Carthage,  and  at  last,  to  prevent  his  falling  into  the 
hands  of  his  enemies,  the  Romans,  he  had  no  re- 
source but  poisoning  himself.  Carthage,  however, 
was  taken,  and  was  burned  for  six  days.  It  reminds 
us  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  ;  for,  as  I  have 
observed,  the  Jews  have  always  distinguished  them- 
selves with  the  same  tenacity  and  obstinacy,  cling- 
ing to  the  same  belief,  probable  or  improbable,  or 
even  impossible.  How  the  Romans  got  on  after  that 
we  can  see  by  the  Commentaries  which  Julius  Csesar 
has  left  us  of  his  own  proceedings,  how  he  spent  ten 
years  of  campaigns  in  Gaul  cautiously  planning  all 
his  measures  before  he  attempted  to  carry  them  into 
effect.  It  is,  indeed,  a  most  interesting  book,  and 
evinces  the  indomitable  force  of  Roman  energy. 
The  triumph  of  civil,  methodic  man  over  wild  and 
barbarous  man  ;  of  calm,  patient  discipline  over 
that  valor  which  is  without  direction,  which  is 
ready  to  die  if  necessary,  but  knows  nothing  further 
than  that. 

Notwithstanding  what  writers  have  said,  it  is  clear 
that  no  one  understands  what  the  Roman  Constitu- 
tion actually  was.  Niebuhr  has  attempted  it,  but  he 
throws  no  light  at  all  upon  the  subject,  and  I  think 


48  THE   EOMAW   CONSTITUTIOX 

that  in  the  absence  of  information  to  draw  any  in- 
ferences on  one  side  or  the  other  is  extremely  un- 
wise. It  appears  to  have  been  a  very  tumultuous 
kind  of  polity,  a  continual  struggle  between  the 
Patricians  and  Plebeians,  the  latter  of  whom  were 
bent  on  having  the  lands  of  the  State  equally 
divided  between  them  and  the  upper  orders.  We 
read  of  constant  secessions  to  the  Aventine,  and 
there  was  rough  work  very  frequentl3%  Therefore, 
I  cannot  join  in  the  lamentations  made  by  some 
over  the  downfall  of  the  Republic  when  Csesar  took 
hold  of  it.  It  had  been  but  a  constant  struggling 
scramble  for  pre^',  and  it  was  well  to  end  it,  and  to 
see  the  wisest,  cleanest,  and  most  judicious  man  of 
them  place  himself  at  the  top  of  it.  The  Romans 
under  the  empire  attained  to  their  complete  gran- 
deur, their  dominion  reached  from  the  river  Euphra- 
tes away  to  Cadiz,  from  the  border  of  the  Arabian 
desert  to  Severus'  Wall  up  in  the  north  of  England. 
And  what  an  empire  it  was  !  teaching  mankind  that 
they  should  be  tilling  the  ground,  as  they  ought  to 
do,  instead  of  fighting  one  another  !  For  that  is  the 
real  thing  which  every  man  is  called  on  to  do,  to  till 
the  ground,  and  not  slay  his  poor  brother  man. 

Coming  now  to  their  literature  we  find  it  to  be 
a  copy  of  that  of  the  Greeks,  but  there  is  a  kind  of 
Roman  worth  in  many  of  their  books.  Their  lan- 
guage, too,  has  a  character  belonging  to  Rome. 
Etymologists  have  traced  many  words  in  it  to  the 


ROMAN   LITERATURE  49 

Pelasgic,  and  some  have  beeu  followed  out  so  far 
as  the  Sanskrit,  proving  thus  the  existence  in  the 
Romans  of  the  two  kinds  of  blood  which  I  have  in- 
dicated. Its  peculiarly  distinguishing  character, 
however,  is  its  imperative  sound  and  structure,  fine- 
ly adapted  to  command. 

So  in  their  books,  as,  for  instance,  the  poems  of 
Virgil  and  Horace,  we  see  the  Roman  character  of 
a  still  strength.  But  their  greatest  work  was  writ- 
ten on  the  face  of  the  planet  in  which  we  live. 
Their  Cyclopean  highways,  extending  from  coun- 
trv  to  country,  their  aqueducts,  their  Coliseums, 
their  whole  polity  !  And  how  spontaneous  all  these 
thiugs  were  !  how  little  any  Roman  knew  what 
Rome  was ! 

There  is  a  tendency  in  all  historians  to  place  a 
plan  in  the  head  of  everyone  of  their  great  charac- 
ters, by  which  he  regulated  his  actions,  forgetting 
that  it  is  not  possible  for  any  man  to  have  foreseen 
events,  and  to  have  embraced  at  once  the  vast  com- 
plication of  the  circumstances  that  were  to  happen. 
It  is  more  reasonable  to  attribute  national  progress 
to  a  great,  deep  instinct  in  every  individual  actor. 
Who  of  us,  for  example,  knows  England,  though  he 
may  contribute  to  her  prosperity  ?  Everyone  here 
follows  his  own  object  ;  one  goes  to  India,  another 
aspires  to  the  army,  and  each  after  his  own  ends  ; 
but  all  thus  co-operate  together  after  all,  one  Eng- 
lishman with  another,  in  addinGf  to  the  stren<?th  and 
4 


50  NATIONAL   CHAEACTER 

wealth  of  the  whole  nation.  The  wisest  govern- 
ment  has  only  to  direct  this  spirit  into  a  proper 
channel,  but  to  believe  that  it  can  lay  down  a  plan 
for  the  creation  of  national  enterprise  is  an  entire 
ioWy.  These  incidents  form  the  deep  foundation  of 
a  national  character  ;  when  they  fail  the  nation  fails 
too,  just  as  when  the  roots  of  a  tree  fail  and  the  sap 
can  mount  the  trunk  and  diffuse  itself  among  the 
leaves  no  longer,  the  tree  stops  too. 

IDuring  a  healthy,  sound,  progressive  period  of 
(national  existence  there  is  in  general  no  literature 
at  all. 

In  a  time  of  active  exertion  the  nation  will  not 
speak  out  its  mind.  It  is  not  till  a  nation  is  ready 
to  decline  that  its  literature  makes  itself  remarkable, 
and  this  is  observable  in  all  nations,  for  there  are 
many  ways  in  which  a  man  or  a  nation  expresses  it- 
self besides  books.  J  The  point  is  not  to  be  able  to 
rte  a  book,  the  point  is  to  have  the  true  mind  for 
Everything  in  that  case  which  the  nation  does 
will  be  equally  significant  of  its  mind.  If  any  great 
man  among  the  Romans,  Julius  Csesar  or  Cato  for 
example,  had  never  done  anything  but  till  the 
ground  they  would  have  acquired  equal  excellence 
in  that  way.  They  would  have  ploughed  as  they 
conquered.  Everything  a  great  man  does  carries 
the  traces  of  a  great  man.  Perhaps  even  there  is 
the  most  energetic  virtue  when  there  is  no  talk 
about  virtue  at  all.     I  wish  my  friends  here  to  con- 


UNCONSCIOUSNESS   OF   GREATNESS         51 

sider  and  keep  this  in  view,  that  progress  and  civ- 
iHzation  may  go  on  unknown  to  the  people  them- 
selves, that  there  may  be  a  primeval  feeling  of  en- 
ergy and  virtue  in  the  founders  of  a  state  whether 
they  can  fathom  it  or  not.  This  feehng  gets  nearer 
every  generation  to  be  uttered,  for  though  the  son 
learns  only  such  things  as  his  father  has  invented, 
yet  he  will  discover  other  things,  and  teach  as  well 
his  own  as  his  father's  inventions  in  his  turn  to  his 
children,  and  so  it  will  go  on  working  itself  out  till 
it  gets  into  conversation  and  speech.  We  shall  ob- 
serve precisely  this  when  we  come  to  the  reign  of 
Queen  Elizabeth.  All  great  things  in  short,  whether  / 
national  or  individual,  are  unconscious  things  !  I  \ 
cannot  get  room  to  insist  on  this  here,  but  we  shiall 
see  them  as  we  go  on,  like  seeds  thrown  out  upon  a 
wide  fertile  field  ;  no  man  sees  what  they  are,  but 
they  grow  up  before  us  and  become  great. 

What  did  that  man  when  he  built  his  house  know 
of  Rome  or  of  Julius  Csesar  that  were  to  come? 
They  were  the  product  of  time  !  Faust,  of  Mentz, 
who  invented  printing,  that  subject  of  so  much  ad- 
miration in  our  times,  never  thought  of  the  results 
that  were  to  follow  ;  he  found  it  a  cheaper  way  of 
publishing  his  Bibles,  and  he  used  it  for  no  other 
purpose  than  to  undersell  the  other  booksellers. 
In  short,  from  the  Christian  religion  down  to  the 
poorest  genuine  song  there  has  been  no  conscious- 
ness in  the  minds  of  the  first  authors  of  anything 


52  THE  iENEID 

of  excelleDce.  Shakespeare,  too,  never  seemed  to 
imagine  that  he  had  any  talent  at  all,  his  only  ob- 
ject seems  to  have  been  to  gather  a  little  money, 
for  he  was  very  necessitous  ;  and  when  we  do  find 
consciousness  the  thing  done  is  sure  to  be  not  a 
great  thing  at  all ;  it  is  a  very  suspicious  circum- 
stance when  anything  makes  a  great  noise  about  it- 
self ;  it  is  like  a  drum,  producing  a  great  deal  of 
sound,  but  very  like  to  be  empty. 

I  shall  here  take  a  short  survey  of  Roman  books. 
The  poem  of  Virgil,  the  ^ueid,  has  long  enjoyed, 
and  will  continue  to  enjoy,  a  great  reputation.  It 
ranks  as  an  Epic  poem,  and  one,  too,  of  the  same 
sort  of  name  as  the  Iliad  of  Homer.  But  I  think 
it  entirely  a  different  poem,  and  very  inferior  to 
Homer.  There  is  that  fatal  consciousness,  that 
knowledge  that  he  is  writing  an  epic,  the  plot,  the 
style,  all  is  vitiated  by  that  one  fault !  The  charac- 
ters, too,  are  noue  of  them  to  be  compared  to  the 
healthy,  whole-hearted,  robust  men  of  Homer,  the 
"  much-enduring  "  Ulysses,  or  Achilles,  or  Agamem- 
non. iEueas,  the  hero  of  the  poem,  is  a  lachrymose 
sort  of  man  altogether.  He  is  introduced  in  the 
middle  of  a  storm,  but  instead  of  handling  the 
tackle  and  doing  what  he  can  for  the  ship  he  sits 
still,  groaning  over  his  misfortunes  !  *'  Was  ever 
mortal,"  he  asks,  "  so  unfortunate  as  I  am  ?  chased 
from  port  to  port  by  the  persecuting  Deities  who 
give  me  no  respite  !  "  and  so  on.     And  then  he  tells 


VIRGIL  53 

them  how  that  he  is  the  "pious  iEneas,"in  short,  he 
is  just  that  sort  of  hichrymose  man  there  is  hardly 
anything  of  a  man  iu  the  iuside  of  him.  But  Virgil 
succeeded  much  better  in  his  other  poems.  This 
-3Eneid  is  not  a  fair  sample  of  what  he  could  do  ;  his 
descriptions  of  natural  scenery  are  very  beautiful, 
and  he  was  a  great  poet  when  he  did  not  observe 
himself,  and  when  he  let  himself  alone. 

His  poetry  is  soft  and  sweet.  In  his  women,  too, 
he  succeeded  wonderfully  ;  his  Dido  was  unmatched 
by  anything  that  had  gone  before.  He  was  a  mild 
and  gentle  man,  born  poor,  and  the  son  of  a  peas- 
ant. He  got  his  education  from  his  father,  and  he 
cultivated  his  paternal  inheritance,  but  being  dis- 
possessed by  some  soldiers,  as  he  himself  tells  us, 
of  his  estate,  he  had  to  go  to  Rome  about  it ;  this 
was  the  begiuning  of  his  fortune.  He  became 
known  to  Mecsenas,  and  afterward  to  Augustus. 
He  was  a  man  of  mild  deportment,  insomuch  that 
the  people  of  Naples,  with  whom  he  lived,  used  to 
call  him  "  the  Maid."  He  was  an  amiable  man,  and 
always  in  bad  health,  much  subject  to  dyspepsia, 
and  to  all  kinds  of  maladies  that  afflict  men  of 
genius  !  The  effect  of  his  poetry  is  like  that  of 
some  laborious  mosaic  of  many  years  in  putting 
together.  There  is  also  the  Roman  method,  the 
Roman  amplitude  and  regularity,  just  as  these 
qualities  were  exhibited  in  the  empire,  but  entirely 
without  that  abandonment  of  self  which  Homer  had. 


54  HORACE 

His  sentiments  and  descriptive  sketches  are  often 
borrowed  out  of  Homer  or  Theocritus,  but  the  style 
and  the  poetry  of  the  whole  overspreading  the  work 
with  a  beautiful  enamel  enable  us  to  judge  of  what 
he  might  have  been  had  he  less  studied  to  produce 
effect.  We  must,  however,  conclude  that  he  was, 
properly  speaking,  not  an  Epic  poet. 

Of  Horace  I  can  afford  to  say  almost  nothing. 
He,  too,  was  a  sort  of  friend  of  Caesar.  His  was  a 
similar  history  to  that  of  Virgil,  and,  like  him,  he 
was  not  betrayed  into  perverseness  by  the  posses- 
sion of  great  wealth.  There  was  in  him  the  same 
polish,  "  a  curious  felicit}^,"  as  one  person  exj^resses 
it.  I  cannot  admire  always  his  moral  pliilosoph3\ 
He  is  sometimes  not  at  all  edifying  in  his  senti- 
ments. He  belonged  to  the  Epicurean  school  of 
philosophy,  an  unbelieving  man,  with  no  thought 
for  anything  but  how  to  make  himself  comfortable, 
and  to  enjoy  himself  in  this  world;  until  a  dark 
melancholy  comes  over  him,  at  which  time  his  opin- 
ions appear  in  their  most  respectable  shape,  and 
then  he  sees  the  all-devouring  death  expecting  him, 
he  knows  well  with  what  issues,  and  at  last  takes 
refuge  from  the  contemplation  in  Epicurean  enjo}'- 
ment !  In  his  writings  he  displays  a  worldly  kind 
of  sagacity,  but  it  is  a  great  sagacity  ! 

It  is  remarkable  how  soon  afterward  Komau 
literature  had  quite  degenerated.  Ovid,  the  next 
celebrated  poet,  has  an  ever-present  consciousness 


SENECA  55 

of  himself,  and  is  very  inferior  to  Horace  cr  Virgil. 
From  this  time  we  get  more  and  more  into  self-con- 
sciousness and  into  scepticism,  and  not  long  after- 
ward without  being  able  to  find  any  bottom  at  all 
to  it.  I  refer  to  Seneca  and  Lucan,  his  nej^hew,  and 
the  whole  family  of  Senecas.  Seneca  was  originally 
from  Cordova  in  Spain  ;  he  got  into  politics,  and  he 
was  Nero's  master  or  tutor. 

He  has  left  some  works  on  philosophy,  and  there 
are  some  tragedies  (twelve,  I  think)  which  go  by  his 
name.  Some  of  these  are  said  to  have  been  written 
by  his  nephew,  Lucan  ;  at  all  events,  they  were 
written  by  one  of  Seneca's  school,  and  fully  imbued 
with  his  philosophj'.  Now,  if  we  want  an  example 
of  a  diseased  self-consciousness,  an  exaggerated  im- 
agination, a  mind  blown  up  with  all  sorts  of  strange 
conceits,  the  spasmodic  state  of  intellect,  in  short, 
of  a  man  morally  unable  to  speak  the  truth  on  any 
subject,  we  have  it  in  Seneca.  He  was  led  away  by 
this  strange  humor  into  all  sorts  of  cant  and  insin- 
cerity. He  exaggerated  the  virtues,  for  instance,  to 
an  extreme  quite  ridiculous,  asserting  that  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  vice  at  all,  that  man  is  all  power^l 
and  like  to  a  god  in  this  world,  having  it  in  his  power 
to  triumph  over  evils  and  calamities  of  all  kinds  by 
his  mere  will ;  and  all  this  while  Seneca  himself  was 
a  mere  pettifogging  courtier,  careful  of  nothing  but 
amassing  money,  and  flattering  Nero  in  all  his  ways. 
Indeed,  it  is  impossible  to  read  such  writings  as  he 


56  TACITUS 

has  left  us  without  suspecting  something.  We  can- 
not help  saying,  "  All  is  not  right  here."  I  willingly 
admit  that  he  had  a  strong  desire  to  be  sincere,  and 
that  he  endeavored  to  convince  himself  that  he  was 
right;  but  even  this,  when  in  connection  with  the 
rest,  constitutes  of  itself  a  fault  of  a  dangerous  kind. 
We  may  trace  it  all  to  that  same  spirit  of  self- 
conceit,  pride,  and  vanity,  which  is  the  ruin  of  all 
things  in  this  world,  and  always  will  be.  The  vices 
of  this  kind  of  literature  connect  themselves  in  a 
natural  sequence  with  the  decline  of  Roman  virtue 
altogether,  when  that  people  had  once  come  to 
disbelief  in  their  own  gods,  and  to  put  all  their 
confidence  in  their  money,  believing  that  with 
their  money  they  could  always  buy  their  money's 
worth. 

This  order  of  things  was  closely  succeeded  by 
moral  abominations  of  the  most  dreadful  kind,  such 
as  were  not  known  before  nor  ever  since,  the  most 
fearful  abominations  under  the  sun.  But  it  is  curious 
to  observe  that  such  is  the  power  of  genius  to  make 
itself  heard  and  felt  in  all  times  that  the  most  sig- 
nificant and  the  greatest  of  Roman  writers  occurs 
posterior  to  these  times  of  Seneca — I  mean  Tacitus. 
In  those  extraordinary  circumstances  of  his  times  he 
displays  more  of  the  Roman  spirit,  perhaps,  than 
any  one  before  him.  His  mind  was  not  hid  under 
all  that  black  mass  of  blasphemy,  covetousness,  and 
villainy.     He  shows  it  in  his  estimate  of  the  Ger- 


TACITUS   ON   THE   GERMANS  57 

mans  even,  for  it  was  something  new  for  any  Roman 
to  speak  favorably  of  barbarians,  or  to  hold  any  other 
opinion  of  their  fellow-men  than  that  every  man  was 
born  to  be  a  slave  to  Rome.  In  the  Germans  he 
sees  a  kind  of  worth,  and  seems  to  contemplate  with 
a  kind  of  shuddering  anticipation  the  time  when 
these  Germans  were  to  come  and  sweep  away  his 
corrupted  country.  "  The  Germans,"  he  says,  "  wage 
a  continual  war  with  one  another  ;  may  the  gods 
grant  that  it  may  always  be  so."  In  the  middle  of 
all  those  facts  in  the  literature  of  his  country,  which 
correspond  so  well  with  what  we  know  of  the  history 
of  Rome  itself,  in  the  middle  of  all  that  quackery 
and  puffery  coming  into  play,  when  critics  wrote 
books  to  teach  you  how  to  hold  out  your  arm  and 
your  leg,  in  the  middle  of  all  this  absurd  and  wicked 
period,  Tacitus  was  born,  and  was  enabled  to  be  a 
Roman  after  all !  He  stood  like  a  Colossus  at  the 
edge  of  a  dark  night,  and  he  sees  events  of  all  kinds 
hurrying  past  him  and  plunging  he  knows  not  where, 
but  evidently  to  no  good,  for  falsehood  and  coward- 
ice never  yet  ended  anywhere  but  in  destruction. 
He  sees  all  this  and  narrates  it  with  grave  calmness, 
giving  us  quietly  his  notions  of  Tiberius  and  others, 
and,  as  he  goes  on,  he  does  not  seem  startled  but 
full  of  deep  views,  unable  to  account  for  it  but  con- 
vinced that  it  will  end  well  somehow  or  other,  for  he 
has  no  belief  but  the  old  Roman  belief,  full  of  their 
old  feelings  of  goodness  and  honesty.   He  is  greatly 


58  AGE   OF   SPECULATION 

distinguislied  from  all  of  that  time,  greatly  distin- 
guished from  Livy,  who  has  collected  together  all 
the  soft  and  beautiful  myths  of  the  time  and  woven 
them  into  a  highly  interesting  history  ;  but,  as  a  his- 
torian, he  was  a  far  inferior  man  to  Tacitus. 

I  shall  now  quit  the  subject  of  Pagan  literature, 
for  after  Tacitus  all  things  went  on  sinking  down 
more  and  more  into  all  kinds  of  disease  and  ruin. 
After  the  survey  which  w^e  have  made,  we  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  there  is  a  strange  coherence  be- 
tween the  healthy  belief  and  outward  destiny  of  a 
nation.  Thus  the  Greeks  went  on  with  their  wars 
and  everything  else  most  prosperously  till  they  be- 
came conscious  of  their  condition — till  the  man  be- 
came solicitous  after  other  times.  Socrates,  we  saw, 
is  a  kind  of  starting-point,  from  which  we  trace 
their  fall  into  confusion  and  wreck  of  all  sorts.  So 
it  was  with  the  Romans.  Cato  the  Elder  used  to 
tell  them:  "The  instant  you  get  the  Greek  litera- 
ture among  you  there  will  be  an  end  of  the  old  Ro- 
man sj^irit."  He  was  not  listened  to  ;  the  rage  for 
Greek  speculation  increased  ;  he  himself  found  it  im- 
possible to  keep  back,  although  he  was  very  angry 
about  it,  and  in  his  old  age  he  learned  the  Greek 
language  and  had  it  taught  to  his  sons.  It  was  too 
late ;  nobod}^  could  believe  any  longer,  and  every- 
one had  set  his  mind  upon  being  a  man  and  think- 
ing for  himself.  In  the  middle  of  all  that  the  event 
occurred,  which  I  shall  repeat  in  the  language  of 


TACITUS   AND   CHEISTIANITY  59 

Tacitus,  who,  after  mentioning  that  in  the  reign 
of  Nero  Kome  was  set  on  fire,  and,  as  was  said,  by 
order  of  that  prince,  who  did  it  most  probably  be- 
cause he  wished  to  build  some  new  streets  and  dis- 
liked to  take  the  trouble  of  clearing  away  the  old 
houses  in  any  other  manner,  and  that  he  sat  playing 
his  harp  and  watching  the  fire,  whereupon  a  great 
rumor  became  raised  abroad,  goes  on  to  say,  as  I 
have  almost  literally  rendered  it  from  the  Ann.  xv. 
chap.  44  : 

"  So  for  the  abolishing  of  that  rumor  he  caused 
to  be  indicted  and  afterward  punished  with  exqui- 
site pains  a  people  hated  for  their  wickedness  (j^ei^ 
flagUia  invisos),  whom  the  vulgar  called  Christians. 
The  author  of  that  sect  was  one  Christ  (Christus 
qiiidam),  who,  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  was  put  to 
death  by  the  procurator  of  Syria,  Pontius  Pilate, 
for  his  hateful  superstition  {propter  exitiale  sitper- 
stitlone),  whereby  being  for  a  time  suppressed,  it 
broke  out  again  not  only  in  Judaea,  where  it  first 
arose,  but  spread  itself  also  unto  other  countries, 
and  finally  unto  Rome  itself,  where  all  things  wicked 
and  horrible  come  at  last  to  gather  themselves  to- 
gether." 

Tacitus  lived  eighty-eight  years  after  the  events 
which  he  here  describes.  It  was  given  to  him  to 
see  no  deeper  into  the  matter  than  appears  from 
the  above  account  of  it.  But  he  and  the  great  em- 
pire were  soon  to  pass  away  forever ! — and  it  was 


60       THE  FORCE  OF  THE  FUTURE 

in  this  despised  sect — this  Ghridus  quidam — it  was 
in  this  new  character  that  all  the  future  world  lay 
hid! 

This  will  furnish  us  with  the  subject  of  our  next 
lecture. 


LECTURE    IV. 

May  11th 

SECOND   PEKIOD 

MiDDi.E  Ages— Christianity  ;  Faith — Inventions — Pi- 
ous Foundations— Pope  Hildebrand— Crusades— 
Troubadours— NiEBELUNGEN  Lied. 

We  have  now  to  direct  our  attention  to  a  ruder 
state  of  man,  and  we  shall  observe  with  what 
shrewdness  man  will  in  this  state  lay  hold  of  the 
information  and  civilization  afforded  him.  For  we 
have  traced  our  subject  through  the  Old  World, 
and  now  we  come  to  the  New  ;  we  investigated,  first 
among  the  Greeks  and  next  among  the  Romans, 
the  system  of  Polytheism  and  Paganism.  We  have 
now  an  equal  period  of  history  to  survey,  that  of 
the  modern  era,  for  about  1800  years  from  the  birth . 
of  Christ ;  having  already  passed  through  as  much 
before  that  epoch  as  we  are  now  from  it.  We  shall, 
therefore,  commence  with  what  'we  can  call  the 
Transition  Period,  or  period  of  the  formation  of  this 
present  life  of  mau,  that  in  which  all  our  beliefs 
and  our  general  way  of  existence  shape  themselves. 


62  MIDDLE   AGES 

The  Middle  Ages  used  to  be  called  ages  of  darkness, 
rudeness,  and  barbarit}^  "  the  Millennium  of  Dark- 
ness," as  one  writer  calls  them  ;  but  it  is  universally 
apparent  now  that  these  ages  are  not  to  be  so 
called.  The  only  writers  in  the  early  part  of  those 
times — times  of  convulsions,  cruel  periods — were 
Romans.  The  barbarians  who  rushed  out  into  the 
scene  of  conquest  were  not  given  to  writing,  and 
accordingly  these  writers  indulge  in  much  abuse  of 
their  invaders  and  wild  lamentation,  recounting  the 
fall  of  their  empire  with  a  dense  shriek  of  horror 
and  indignation.  With  them,  therefore,  the  name 
of  barbarian  is  a  synonym  for  whatever  is  bad  and 
base ;  to  this  day  the  name  of  "Goth"  is  so  applied, 
even  with  us,  the  descendants  of  those  conquerors. 
It  was  a  great  and  fertile  period,  however — that  in- 
vasion of  the  barbarians  and  their  settlement  in  the 
Roman  Empire.  There  is  a  sentence  which  I  find 
in  Goethe,  full  of  meaning  in  this  regard.  It  must 
be  noted,  he  says,  "that  belief  and  unbelief  are  two 
opposite  principles  in  human  nature.  The  theme 
of  all  human  history,  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  per- 
ceive it,  is  the  contest  between  these  two  principles." 
"All  periods,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "in  wdiich  belief 
predominates,  in  which  it  is  the  main  element,  the 
inspiring  principle  of  action,  are  distinguished  by 
great,  soul-stirring,  fertile  events,  and  worthy  of 
perpetual  remembrance.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
when  unbelief  gets  the  upper  hand,  that  age  is  uu- 


BELIEF  AND   UNBELIEF  63 

fertile,  unproductive,  and  intrinsically  mean  ;  in 
which  there  is  no  pabulum  for  the  spirit  of  man, 
and  no  one  can  get  nourishment  for  himself ! " 
This  passage  is  one  of  the  most  pregnant  utterances 
ever  delivered,  and  we  shall  do  well  to  keep  it  in 
mind  in  these  disquisitions  on  this  period  ;  for  in 
tlie  Middle  Ages  we  see  the  great  phenomenon  of 
belief  gaining  the  victory  over  unbelief.  And  this 
same  remark  is  altogether  true  of  all  things  what- 
ever in  this  world,  and  it  throws  much  light  on  the 
history  of  the  whole  world,  and  that  in  two  ways, 
for  belief  serves  both  as  a  fact  itself  and  the  cause 
of  other  facts.  It  appears  only  in  a  healthy  mind, 
and  it  is  at  once  an  indication  of  it  and  the  cause 
of  it  For  though  doubt  may  be  necessary  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  in  order  to  prepare  subject-matter  for 
reflection,  it  can  be  only  after  all  a  morbid  condi- 
tion of  the  intellect,  and  an  intermediate  one  ;  but 
that  speculation  should  end  in  doubt  is  wholly  un- 
reasonable. It  is,  as  I  have  said,  a  morbid  state  ;  it  is 
a  state  of  mental  paralysis — a  highly  painful  state  of 
mind,  one  which  the  healthy  man  won't  entertain 
at  all,  but,  if  he  can  do  nothing  better  with  it,  dis- 
misses it  altogether.  There  is  no  use  in  it  that  one 
can  understand  except  to  give  the  mind  something 
to  work  on  !  Belief,  then,  is  the  indication  and  the 
cause  of  health,  and  when  we  see  it  in  a  whole 
world  we  ma}'  be  sure  that  the  world  is  able  to  say 
and  to  do  something.     It  is  the  heart  rather  than 


64 


the  intellect  that  Goethe  has  in  mind  in  the  passage 
quoted.  It  is  the  heart  after  all  that  most  influ- 
ences. Our  knowledge  of  physics,  our  whole  circle 
of  scientific  acquirements,  depends  on  \vhat  figure 
each  man  will  give  it  and  shape  to  himself  in  his 
own  heart ! 

Thus  in  the  Middle  Ages,  being  in  contact  with 
fact  and  reality,  in  communion  with  truth  and  nat- 
ure, not  merely  with  hearsays  and  vain  formulas, 
but  feeling  the  presence  of  truth  in  the  heart,  that 
is  the  great  fact  of  the  time — belief  !  And  this  is 
independent  of  their  dogmas.  In  the  genuine  Pa- 
gan times,  too,  among  much  that  is  absurd  and  vep- 
rehensible,  w^e  found  a  great  good  accomplished  by 
its  means  ;  there  w^as  there  also  a  belief,  which  was 
accompanied  by  an  adjustment  of  themselves  toward 
these  opinions  of  theirs.  They  had  discovered  and 
recognized  in  themselves,  whether  they  expressed  it 
in  words  or  not,  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Ar- 
rangement ;  they  had  not  discovered  it  without  per- 
ceiving the  numerous  inconsistencies  and  contradic- 
tions of  their  religious  system  ;  these  had  doubtless 
struck  them  at  first,  but  they  had  adjusted  them- 
selves to  that  ;  but  their  way  of  religion  and  life 
had  this  kind  of  belief  in  it— belief  in  one's  self! 
They  did  not  fail  to  observe  what  a  thing  man  is — 
what  a  high,  royal  nature  is  given  to  him  !  This 
appears  in  particular  in  later  times,  when  the  old 
religion  had  altogether  passed  away,  and  its  intel- 


THE   CYNIC   PHILOSOPHERS  Q5 

lectual  results  only  remaiued,  in  their  philosophers, 
for  instance,  and  strikingly  above  all  others  in  the 
Stoics,  a  set  extremely  j^revalent  in  Rome  ;  in  later 
times  all  that  the  Romans  had  to  adhere  to  in  the 
way  of  belief. 

One  sees  in  their  opinions  a  gi-eat  truth,  but  ex- 
tremely exaggerated  :  that  bold  assertion,  for  ex- 
ample, in  the  face  of  all  reason  and  fact,  that  pain 
and  pleasure  are  the  same  thing  ;  that  man  is  indif- 
ferent to  both  ;  that  he  is  a  king  in  this  world  ;  that 
nothing  can  conquer  him  !  Still  more  strikingly  is 
it  displayed  in  a  peculiar  sort  of  Stoicism,  the  Cynic 
set  of  philosophers.  There  have  been  few  more 
striking  characters  than  that  of  Diogenes  the  Cynic, 
adopting  the  Stoic  principle  and  carrying  it  out 
to  its  extreme  development,  and  professing  to  set 
himself  above  all  accidental  circumstances,  such  as 
poverty  or  disgrace,  atid  taking  them  rather  as  a 
sort  of  schooling,  as  a  lesson  he  was  to  learn  and  in 
the  best  manner  he  could.  D'Alembert  pronounces 
him  to  have  been  one  of  the  gi-eatest  men  of  an- 
tiquit}^  although  there  were  in  him  several  things 
counter  to  D'Alembert's  way  of  thinking  ;  decency, 
for  example,  was  of  no  significance  for  him.  It  is 
strange  to  see  that  remarkable  interview — the  one 
the  conqueror  of  all  the  world,  in  his  pride  and 
glory  and  splendor  ;  the  other  a  poor  needy  man, 
with  nothing  besides  his  skin  save  the  soul  that  was 
in  him  !  Alexander  asked  him  in  their  interview 
5 


66  CHEISTIANITY 

(for  Diogenes  had  a  sharp,  sour  tongue  in  his  head) 
if  he  could  give  him  anything  ?  "  You  can  stand  out 
of  the  sun  and  give  me  light."  That  was  all  Alex- 
ander could  give  Diogenes  !  This  was  certaiulj  a 
great  thing,  and  altogether  worthy  to  be  recog- 
nized ;  it  Avas  much  for  man.  But  if  we  look  into 
the  Christian  religion,  that  dignification  of  man's 
life  and  nature,  we  shall  find,  indeed,  this  also  in  it 
— to  believe  in  one's  self,  that  thing  given  to  him 
by  the  Creator.  But  then  how  unspeakably  more 
human  is  this  belief,  not  held  in  proud  scorn  and 
contempt  of  other  men,  in  cynical  disdain  or  indig- 
nation at  their  paltrinesses,  but  received  by  extermi- 
nating pride  altogether  from  the  mind,  and  held  in 
degradation  and  deep  human  sufferings.  There  is 
darkness  and  afHiction  in  all  things  around  it  in  its 
origin.  We  saw  what  it  appeared  to  Tacitus,  the 
greatest  man  of  his  time,  some  seventy  years  after 
its  origin.  Its  outward  history  was  on  a  par  with 
its  interior  meaning ;  its  province  was  not  to  en- 
courage pride,  but  to  cut  that  down  altogether. 
There  is  a  remarkable  passage  of  Goethe,  where  he 
calls  it  "  the  worship  of  Sorrow,"  its  doctrine  "  the 
sanctuary  of  Sorrow."  It  was,  he  continues  (re- 
garding it  simply  on  its  secular  side,  not  in  view  of 
any  particular  religious  sect,  but  just  as  the  Divinest 
thing  that  could  be  looked  at),  the  showing  to  man 
for  the  first  time  that  suffering  and  degradation, 
the  most  hateful  to  the  sensual  regard,  possessed  a 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   ETERNITY  67 

beauty  "svliich  surpassed  all  other  beauty.  It  is  not 
our  part  to  touch  on  sacred  things,  but  we  should 
altogether  fail  to  discover  the  meaning  of  this  His- 
torical Period  if  we  did  not  lay  deeply  to  heart  the 
meaning  of  Christianity.  In  another  point  of  view 
we  may  regard  it  as  the  revelation  of  eternity  exist- 
ing in  the  middle  of  time  to  man.  He  stands  here 
between  the  conflux  of  two  elements,  the  Past  and 
the  Future  ;  the  thing  that  v/e  are  at  this  moment 
speaking  or  doing  comes  to  us  from  the  beginning 
of  days.  The  word  I  am  this  moment  speaking 
came  to  me  from  Cadmus  of  Thebes,  or  some  other 
ancient  member  of  the  great  family  of  Adam,  and  it 
will  go  on  to  an  endless  future  ! 

Every  man  may  with  truth  say  that  he  waited  for 
a  whole  eternity  to  be  born,  and  that  he  has  now  a 
whole  eternity  waiting  to  see  what  he  will  do  now 
that  he  is  born.  It  is  this  which  gives  to  this  little 
period  of  life,  so  contemptible  when  weighed  against 
eternit}-,  a  significance  it  never  had  without  it.  It 
is  thus  an  infinite  arena,  where  infinite  interests  are 
played  out ;  not  an  action  of  man  but  will  have  its 
truth  realized  and  will  go  on  forever.  His  most  in- 
significant action,  for  some  are  more  so  than  others, 
carries  its  print  of  this  endless  duration. 

This  truth,  whatever  may  be  the  opinions  we 
hold  on  Christian  doctrines,  or  whether  we  hold 
upon  them  a  sacred  silence  or  not,  we  must  recog- 
nize in  Christianity  and  its  belief,  independently  of 


68  CONVEESION   OF  THE   GERMANS 

all  theories,  for  it  was  not  revealed  till  then,  and  it 
is  not  possible  to  imagine  results  of  a  more  signifi- 
cant nature  than  those  it  produced.  One  can  fancy 
with  what  mute  astonishment  the  invading  barba- 
rians must  have  paused  when  their  wild  barbarous 
minds  were  first  saluted  with  the  tidings  of  that  great 
Eternity  lying  round  the  world,  this  earth  now  be- 
come an  intelligible  thing  to  them  ;  how  this  wild 
German  people,  heated  with  conquest  and  tumult, 
paused  and  took  it  all  in,  this  doctrine,  without  ar- 
gument. I  believe  that  argument  was  not  at  all 
used  ;  it  was  done  by  the  conviction  of  the  men 
themselves,  who  spoke  into  convincible  minds  ;  and 
herein  is  the  great  distinction  of  ancient  from 
modern  Europe,  nay,  of  modern  Europe  from  all 
the  world  besides. 

It  has  been  truly  said  by  Goethe  that  this  is  a 
progress  that  we  are  all  capable  of  making  and 
destined  to  make,  and  from  which,  when  made,  we 
can  never  retrograde.  There  may  be  all  manner  of 
arguments  and  delusions,  and  true  and  false  specu- 
lations about  it ;  but  we  can  well  understand  the 
Divine  doctrine  of  Eternity,  manifesting  itself  in 
time,  and  time  drawing  all  its  meaning  from 
eternity.  It  only  requires  a  pure  heart,  and  then 
if  all  else  were  destroyed,  if  there  were  even  no 
Bible,  and  a  mere  tradition  remaining  of  its  having 
once  been,  from  the  progress  once  made,  we  should 
never  go  back.     If  to  this  sublime  proceeding  we 


LOYALTY  69 

add  the  character  of  the  northern  people  —  the 
German  people,  best  suited  of  all  others  to  receive 
the  faith  and  maintain  it  and  develop  it,  being- 
endowed  with  the  largest  nature,  the  deepest  afifec- 
tions ;  if,  I  say,  we  add  these  together,  we  shall 
have  the  two  leading  phenomena  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  the  possibility  of  great  nations  constructing 
themselves,  and  of  all  good  things  coming  out  of 
them.  It  is  curious  accordingly  to  see  with  what 
facility  the  matter  proceeds ;  in  two  centuries  after 
the  people  of  the  North  had  begun  to  break  in  on 
the  South,  from  Alaric  downward,  how  quietly  do 
all  things  settle  down  into  arrangement,  in  one  just 
way,  everything  with  a  new  character  of  its  own,  and 
all  disjDlaying  that  shrewdness  which,  to  refer  to  the 
text  with  which  we  set  out,  marks  the  intellectual 
efforts  of  societies  in  their  rude  state. 

There  was  that  thing  which  we  call  loyalty. 
That  attachment  of  man  to  man,  indeed,  is  as  old 
as  the  existence  of  man  himself.  The  kings  and 
chiefs  of  early  times  had  their  dependents  ;  Achilles, 
for  example,  had  his  Myrmidons.  The  feeling  must 
exist  among  men  if  they  are  to  maintain  themselves 
in  society.  At  the  same  time,  it  had  never  before 
nor  anywhere  existed  in  such  a  shape  as  it  has  since 
assumed  among  the  modern  nations  of  Europe,  the 
descendants  of  the  Romans  and  Germans,  men  of 
the  deepest  affections,  and  imbued  with  the  sacred 
principle  of  Christianity  ;  in  them  resulting  in  every- 


70  THE   CHURCH 

thing  great  and  noble,  and  in  this  feeling  of  loyalty 
among  others.  In  these  times  loyalty  is  much  kept 
out  of  sight  and  little  appreciated,  and  many  minds 
regard  it  as  a  sort  of  obsolete  chimera,  looking 
more  to  independence  or  some  such  thing  now  re- 
garded as  a  great  virtue  ;  and  this  is  very  just,  and 
most  suitable  to  this  time  of  movement  and  pro- 
gress. It  must  be  granted  at  once  that  to  exact 
loyalty  to  things  so  bad  as  to  be  not  worth  being 
loyal  to  is  quite  an  insupportable  thing,  and  one 
that  the  world  would  spurn  at  once.  This  must  be 
conceded  ;  yet  the  better  thinkers  will  see  that  loy- 
alty is  a  principle  perennial  in  human  nature,  the 
highest  that  unfolds  itself  there  in  a  temporal,  secu- 
lar point  of  view  ;  for  there  is  no  other  kind  of  way 
by  which  human  society  can  be  safely  constructed 
than  that  feeling  of  lo3^alty,  whereby  those  who  are 
worthy  are  reverenced  by  those  who  are  capable  of 
reverence.  Thus,  in  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  the 
noblest  phenomenon,  the  finest  phase  in  society 
anywhere.  Loyalty  was  the  foundation  of  the  state. 
Another  great  cardinal  point,  a  hinge  on  which 
all  other  things  were  suspended,  was  the  Church, 
the  institution  appointed  to  keep  alive  the  sacred 
light  of  religion.  No  doubt  the  men  of  that  age 
held  many  absurd  doctrines,  but  we  must  remember 
that  it  is  not  scientific  doctrines  that  constitute 
belief  :  it  is  the  sincerity  of  heart  which  constitutes 
the  whole  merit  of  belief.     Many  of  their  doctrines, 


PLINY' S  LETTER  TO  TRAJAN      71 

doubtless,  were  absurd  and  entirely  incredible,  but 
we  sliall  blind  ourselves  to  their  significance  if  we 
do  not  see  into  them  independently  of  theology. 
It  is  curious  to  trace  the  phenomena  of  the  Christian 
Church  in  early  days,  how  it  grows  on  in  neglect 
and  indifference.  Besides  the  remarkable  passage 
out  of  Tacitus,  which  I  read  in  my  last  lecture,  we 
have  another  curious  document  probably  a  little 
later,  the  celebrated  letter  of  Pliny  to  the  Emperor 
Trajan  respecting  the  Christians  of  Bithynia.  It 
was  written  prior  to  the  year  100  a.d.,  but  there  is 
no  date  to  it.  It  is  very  striking  to  observe  how,  in 
the  middle  of  that  black  night  which  then  over- 
spread the  earth,  of  that  great  darkness,  a  small 
light  begins  to  make  itself  seen  !  But  Pliny  could 
not  see  anything  important  in  these  people.  He 
writes  that  "certain  people  among  them  admit  that 
they  are  Christians,  some  say  that  they  were  two  or 
three  years  ago,  but  have  since  left  them."  But 
some  did  admit  that  they  were  Christians.  They 
were  far,  he  goes  on  to  say,  from  being  given  to 
lies  and  bad  practices  (flagitia,  flagitious  practices)  ; 
they  told  him  that  they  met  together  and  exhorted 
one  another  on  certain  days  (doubtless  on  the 
Christian  Sabbath)  before  sunrise,  precisely  to  avoid 
all  that,  and  that  after  so  exhorting  themselves  they 
met  together  at  a  friendly  repast  (doubtless  this  was 
the  Communion).  That  they  were  quite  fi-ee  and 
unspotted,  however,  from  the  vices  with  which  the 


72  GROWTH   OF  THE   CHURCH 

world  charged  them,  that  world  itself  wholly  im- 
mersed in  those  very  vices !  And  he  recommends 
that  they  should  be  let  alone,  and  should  not  be 
persecuted,  for  he  does  not  think  that  they  will  last 
much  longer  ;  they  had  agreed  to  give  up  meeting 
together,  and  to  avoid  all  that  would  give  offence. 
"What  is  a  very  remarkable  fact,  he  goes  on  to  say 
that  he  thinks  that  they  may  go  on  with  their  opin- 
ions without  danger  to  the  State  religion,  for  that 
he  had  been  recently  refitting  the  temples,  and  that 
they  were  now  more  crowded  than  ever  they  were, 
and,  in  short,  that  the  old  spirit  was  returning,  and 
that  everything  would  revive.  This  was  the  char- 
acter of  the  Church  down  to  the  end  of  the  first 
century.  From  that  time  churches  began  to  spring 
up  everywhere,  synods  were  established,  and  bishops 
in  every  church  ;  there  is  no  doubt,  too,  that  the 
seat  of  the  main  ecclesiastical  power  was  at  Eome, 
the  Bishop  of  which  city  had  a  pre-eminence  among 
the  bishops.  This  became  fully  established  under 
Gregory  the  Great. 

At  that  time  the  name  of  the  chief  Bishop  was 
not  Pope  but  Primate.  From  Rome  he  sent  his 
commands  to  all  parts  of  the  Christian  world.  He 
it  was  who  sent  the  monk  Augustine  with  a  few 
other  monks  to  this  country,  who  converted  our 
Saxon  ancestors  to  Christianity.  Like  all  other 
matters  there  were  contradictions  and  inconsistencies 
without  end,  but  it  should  be  re^iarded  in  its  ideal. 


HILDEBRAND  73 

The  greatest  height  to  which  it  ever  did  attain  in 
the  world  was  in  the  time  of  Pope  Hildebrand, 
about  the  year  1070,  or  soon  after  the  conquest  of 
England  by  William  the  Conqueror.  That  was  its 
time  of  highest  perfection.  All  Europe  then  was 
firm  and  unshaken  in  the  faith.  It  abounded  in 
churches,  and  monks,  and  convents,  founded  for 
meditation  and  silent  study  ;  that  was  the  ideal  of 
monachism.  It  was  the  age  of  teachers  and  preach- 
ers of  all  kinds,  sent  into  all  parts  of  the  world  to 
convert  all  the  heathen  into  Christianity.  It  was 
the  Church  itself,  for  which  human  society  was 
then  constituted,  for  w^hat  were  human  things  in 
comparison  with  the  eternal  world  which  lay  beyond 
them.  Hildebrand  was,  it  appears,  though  not 
certainly,  the  son  of  a  Tuscan  peasant ;  he  was  a 
great  and  deep  thinker,  and  at  an  early  period  he 
entered  the  monastic  life,  as  it  was  natural  he 
should,  for  there  was  no  other  congenial  employ- 
ment open  to  him.  He  became  one  of  the  monks 
in  the  famous  monastery  of  Clugny.  There  he  soon 
distinguished  himself  for  his  superior  attainments, 
was  successively  promoted  and  employed  by  several 
Popes  on  missions  of  importance,  and  at  last  he 
became  Pope  himself.  One  can  well  see  from  his 
history  what  it  was  he  meant.  He  has  been  re- 
garded by  some  classes  of  Protestants  as  the  wicked- 
est of  men,  but  I  do  hope  that  we  have  at  this  day 
outgrown  all  that.     He  perceived  that  the  Church 


74  THE  TEMPORAL   POWER 

was  the  highest  thing  in  the  world,  and  he  iJesolved 
that  it  should  be  at  the  top  of  the  whole  world, 
animating  human  things  and  giving  them  their 
main  guidance.  He  first  published  the  Decretal 
Order  on  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  determined 
that  they  should  have  nothing  to  do  with  worldly 
affairs,  but  should  work  as  soldiers  enlisted  in  a 
sacred  cause. 

There  was  another  pretension  made  by  him, 
which,  indeed,  had  been  the  subject  of  controversy 
before,  but  which  Hildebrand  put  forward  in  quite 
a  new  light.  That  was,  that  popes,  bishops,  and 
priests  had  no  right  to  be  invested  with  their  offices 
by  the  Emperor  of  Germany,  or  any  temporal  lord, 
but  that  being  once  nominated  by  the  Church  they 
were  henceforth  validly  invested  with  their  offices, 
and  this  was  so  because  the  world  could  have  no 
legitimate  control  in  things  spiritual.  The  Emperor 
of  Germany,  at  that  time  Henry  IV.,  a  young  man 
and  not  of  sufficient  wisdom  to  know  the  age,  re- 
sisted this  pretension,  and  the  Pope  resisted  him, 
and  there  ensued  great  quantities  of  confused  strug- 
gling. At  last,  in  the  month  of  January,  1077,  at 
the  castle  of  Canossa,  now  in  ruins  near  Eeggio  in 
Modena,  whither  Hildebrand  had  retired  after  hav- 
ing excommunicated  the  Germans,  and  freed  the 
Saxons  then  in  arms  against  Henry's  authority, 
Henry  became  reduced  to  the  painful  necessity  of 
coming  away  to  him,  and  offering  to  submit  to  any 


HENllY    AT   CANOSSA  75 

punishment  the  Pope  should  appoint.  His  recep- 
tion was  most  humiliating  ;  he  was  obliged  to  leave 
all  his  attendants  at  some  distance,  and  come  him- 
self in  the  garb  of  a  penitent  with  nothing  on  him 
but  a  woollen  cloth,  and  there  to  stand  for  three 
days  in  the  snow  before  he  was  suffered  to  come 
into  the  Pope's  presence  !  One  would  think  from 
all  this  that  Hildebrand  was  a  proud  man,  but  he 
was  not  a  proud  man  at  all,  and  seems  from  many 
circumstances  to  have  been,  on  the  contrary,  a  man 
of  very  great  humility  ;  but  here  he  treated  himself 
as  the  representative  of  Christ,  and  far  beyond  all 
earthly  authorities,  and  he  reasoned  that  if  Christ 
was  higher  than  the  Emperor  the  Emperor  ought  to 
subject  himself  to  the  Church's  power  as  all  Europe 
was  obliged  to  do.  In  these  circumstances,  doubt- 
less, there  are  many  questionable  things,  but  then 
there  are  many  cheering  things,  for  we  see  the  son 
of  a  poor  Tuscan  peasant,  solely  by  the  suj)erior 
spiritual  force  that  was  in  him,  humble  a  great 
Emperor  at  the  head  of  the  iron  force  of  Europe ! 
And  to  look  at  it  in  a  tolerant  point  of  view,  it  is 
really  very  grand,  it  is  the  spirit  of  Europe  set  above 
the  body  of  Europe,  mind  triumphant  over  brute 
force  ! 

Hildebrand  endured  great  miseries  after  that  ;  he 
was  for  three  years  besieged  by  Henry  in  the  castle 
of  St.  Angelo  until  he  died.  Some  have  feared  that 
the  tendency  of  such  things  is  to  found  a  theocracy, 


76  THE   CRUSADES 

and  have  imagined  that  if  this  had  gone  on  till  our 
days  a  most  abject  superstition  would  have  become 
established.  But  this  is  entirely  a  vain  theory: 
The  clay  that  is  about  man  is  alwaj's  sufficiently 
ready  to  assert  its  rights  ;  the  danger  is  always  the 
other  way,  that  the  spiritual  part  of  man  will  be- 
come overlaid  with  his  bodily  part. 

This,  then,  was  the  Church.  The  Church  and 
the  loyalty  of  the  time  were  the  two  hinges  of  soci- 
ety ;  and  that  society  was  in  consequence  distin- 
guished from  all  societies  which  had  preceded  it, 
presenting  an  infinitely  greater  diversity  of  view, 
a  better  humanity,  a  largeness  of  capacity.  This 
society  has  since  undergone  many  changes,  but  I 
hope  that  spirit  may  go  on  for  countless  ages  yet, 
the  spirit  which  at  that  period  was  set  going. 

A  strange  phase  of  the  healthy  belief,  the  deep 
belief  of  the  time,  were  the  Crusades.  I  am  far 
from  vindicating  the  Crusades  in  a  political  point 
of  view,  but  at  the  same  time  we  should  miss  the 
grand  apex  of  that  life  if  we  did  not  for  a  moment 
dwell  upon  these  events.  It  was  a  strange  thing  to 
see  how  Peter,  a  jDOor  monk,  recently  come  home 
from  Syria,  but  fully  convinced  of  the  propriety  of 
the  step,  set  out  on  his  mission  through  Europe  ; 
how  he  talked  about  it  to  the  Pope,  regarding  it  as 
a  proper  and  indispensably  necessary  duty  to  re- 
move the  abomination  of  Mahometanism  from  the 
sacred  places,  till  in  1096  the  Council  of  Clermont 


PETER  THE  HERMIT  77 

was  held  in  Auvergne.  One  sees  Peter  riding 
along,  dressed  in  bis  brown  cloak,  with  the  rope  of 
the  penitent  tied  around  him,  swaying  all  hearts 
and  burning  them  up  with  zeal,  and  stirring  up 
steel-clad  Europe  till  it  shook  itself  at  his  words. 
What  a  contrast  to  that  greatest  of  orators,  De- 
mosthenes, spending  nights  and  years  in  the  con- 
struction of  those  balanced  sentences  which  are  still 
read  with  admiration,  descending  into  the  smallest 
details,  speaking  with  pebbles  in  his  mouth  and  the 
waves  of  the  sea  beside  him  ;  and  all  his  way  of  life 
in  this  manner  occupied  during  many  years,  and 
then  to  eud  in  simply  nothing  at  all,  for  he  did 
nothing  for  his  country  with  all  his  eloquence  ;  and 
then  see  this  poor  monk  start  out  here  without  any 
art  at  all,  but  with  something  far  greater  than  art ! 
For  as  Demosthenes  was  once  asked,  what  was  the 
secret  of  a  fine  orator,  and  he  replied,  action ! 
action !  action  !  so,  if  I  were  asked  it,  I  should  say, 
belief  !  belief  !  belief  !  He  must  be  first  persuaded 
himself  if  he  wish  to  persuade  other  people. 

The  Crusades  altogether  lasted  upward  of  100 
years  ;  Jerusalem  was  taken  in  1099.  Some  have 
admired  them  because  they  served  to  bring  all  Eu- 
rope into  communication  with  itself,  others  because 
it  produced  the  elevation  of  the  middle  classes ;  but 
I  say  that  the  great  result  which  characterizes  them 
and  gives  them  all  their  merit  is,  that  in  them  Eu- 
rope for  one  moment  proved  its  belief,  proved  that 


78  CHARACTEE   OF   THE   AGE 

it  believed  in  the  invisible  v^^orld  which  surrounds 
the  outward  visible  world,  that  this  belief  had  for 
once  entered  into  the  circumstances  of  man  !  This 
fact  that  for  once  something  sacred  entered  into  the 
minds  of  nations,  has  been  more  productive  of  prac- 
tical results  than  any  other  could  be  ;  it  lives  yet, 
transmitting  itself  by  unseen  channels  as  all  good 
things  do  in  this  world. 

In  these  ages  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  there 
was  any  literature  :  it  was  a  healthy  age.  We  have 
remarked  in  the  last  lecture  that  the  appearance  of 
literature  is  a  sign  that  the  age  producing  it  is  not 
far  from  decline  and  decay.  The  great  principles 
which  animate  its  development  are  at  work,  deep 
and  unconscious,  long  before  they  get  to  express 
themselves,  and  the  people  follow  by  instinct  their 
commands.  Literature  could  not  exist  in  such  a 
time  when  even  the  nobles  and  great  men  were  un- 
able to  write.  Their  only  mode  of  signing  charters 
was  by  dipping  the  glove-mailed  hand  into  the  ink 
and  imprinting  it  on  the  charter.  A  strong  warrior 
would  disdain  to  write,  he  had  other  functions  than 
this  ;  and  though  writing  is  one  of  the  noblest  utter- 
ances, for  speech  is  so,  there  are  other  ways  besides 
that  of  expressing  one's  self,  and  to  lead  a  heroic 
life  is,  perhaps,  a  greater  thing  than  to  write  a  he- 
roic poem  !  This  was  the  case  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  ideal  of  the  age  was 
perfect,  far  from  that !     No  age  tliat  has  yet  been 


THE   TROUBADOURS  71) 

has  not  been  one  of  contradictions,  which  make  the 
heart  sick  and  sore  if  the  heart  be  earnest.  But  I 
assert  that  an  ideal  did  exist ;  the  heroic  heart  was 
not  then  desolate  and  alone,  it  was  appreciated,  and 
its  great  result  was  a  perpetual  struggling  forward, 
that  was  the  real  age  of  gold !  We  know  that  in 
any  other  way  there  has  never  been  such  a  thing  as 
an  age  of  gold.  Nothing  is  to  be  won  but  by  hu- 
man exertions.  But  a  literature  did  come  at  last. 
I  allude  to  the  Troubadours  and  Trouveres  of  the 
twelfth  century.  These  will  not  detain  us  long. 
Theirs  were  the  beautiful  childlike  utterances  just 
waking  to  speak  of  chivalry,  and  heroic  deeds,  and 
love,  in  song  and  music  :  the  people  had  begun  to 
get  able  to  speak  then.  This  sort  of  poetry  became 
not  much  improved  afterward,  it  was  perfect  from 
the  first ;  indeed,  it  could  not  have  received  any 
improvement  from  succeeding  times,  for  shortly  af- 
terward we  observe  the  rise  of  a  kind  of  feeling 
adverse  to  this  spirit  of  harmony,  which  we  shall 
by  and  by  see  get  out  into  Protestantism.  In  the 
meantime  all  was  one  beautiful  harmony  and  relig- 
ious unity.  It  is  astonishing  to  see  to  what  an  ex- 
tent music  and  singing  had  already  gone  in  all  coun- 
tries. The  Troubadours  and  Trouveres  belonged  to 
distinct  races — the  one  Norman,  with  whom  were 
joined  our  English  forefathers ;  and  the  others, 
the  Troubadours,  were  Provenyal.  This  formed 
a  division  between  them.    Those  from  the  North,  or 


80  THE  NIEBELUNGEN   LIED 

Trouveres,  sang  of  chivalrous  histories,  such  as  those 
of  Charlemagne,  of  Arthur  and  the  Bound  Table  ; 
while  those  from  the  South  sang  of  love,  of  chivahy, 
joustings,  and  so  forth.  From  want  of  space  I  can- 
not go  deeper  just  now  into  the  subject,  but  I  will 
just  mention  that  the  spirit  of  these  two  kinds  of 
ballads  have  been  curiously  preserved  to  us  by  two 
poets,  who  can  hardly  be  said  to  belong  to  the 
Troubadours.  Petrarch  may  be  said  to  have  been 
the  Troubadour  of  Italy,  which  country  had  prop- 
erly none  else  of  its  own,  though  he  came  a  century 
later  than  the  true  Troubadours.  I  refer  to  his  great 
genius  in  sonnets  and  love  singing.  In  him  was  a 
refined  spirit  of  the  Troubadour  poetry ;  doubtless 
it  had  many  faults,  but  there  it  is  in  its  more  com- 
plete shape,  as  it  lay  in  the  melodious  mind  of  Pe- 
trarch. This  kind  of  song  was  cultivated  even  by 
kings  and  princes,  such  as  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion 
and  Barbarossa. 

The  other  production  to  which  I  have  alluded,  of 
the  Troubadour  school,  is  better  known  by  the  name 
of  the  Niebelungen  Lied.  This  is  j^roperly  Trou- 
vere.  The  probable  date  of  this  poem  is  the  twelfth 
century  ;  it  is  by  far  the  finest  poem  connected  with 
the  Middle  Ages,  down  to  Dante.  It  is  of  the  old 
heroic  German  spirit,  and  sounds  true  as  steel.  It 
commemorates  the  adventures  of  the  early  Chiefs, 
of  Siegfried  and  King  Attila,  and  of  the  whole  nation 
from  their  emiorations  downward,  all  shadowed  out 


PERMANENCE   OF   GOOD  81 

there.  It  is  of  the  first  rate,  not  perhaps  evincing  a 
shining  genius,  but  far  better  than  that,  the  simple, 
noble,  manly  character  of  its  age,  full  of  religion, 
mercy,  and  valor  !  It  was  discovered  about  sixty 
years  ago,  but  became  generally  known  only  forty 
years  after  that.  I  advise  any  of  my  friends  who 
know  German  to  make  this  poem  their  study  ;  a 
modern  German  translation  of  it  has  been  published, 
but  the  language  of  the  original  is  not  much  older 
to  the  German  scholar  than  Chaucer  is  to  us,  and  it 
is  by  far  the  finest  poem  we  have  of  that  period. 

We  must  now  quit  this  general  investigation  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  but  I  must,  in  the  last  place,  remark 
that  we  must  not  suppose  because  the  spirit  of  those 
ages  did  not  speak  much  it  has  been  lost,  or  ever 
could  have  been  lost.  It  is  not  so  ordered.  There 
is  no  good  action  man  can  do  that  is  not  summoned 
up  in  time  to  come,  and  kept  up  there.  We  lose, 
indeed,  much  of  the  inconsistencies  and  contradic- 
tions of  the  times  in  the  lapse  of  ages.  But  this 
again  is  precisely  what  we  observe  of  rude  natural 
voices,  heard  singing  in  the  distance.  Musicians  say 
that  there  is  nothing  so  strikingly  impressive  as  to 
hear  a  psalm,  for  instance,  sung  by  untaught  voices 
in  the  mountains  ;  many  inaccuracies,  no  doubt, 
there  are  in  the  performance,  but  in  the  distance  all 
is  true  and  bright,  because  all  false  notes  destroy 
one  another,  and  are  absorbed  in  the  air  before  they 
reach  us,  and  only  the  true  notes  come  to  us.  So 
6 


82  ACTIONS   INDESTEUCTIBLE 

in  the  Middle  Ages  we  only  get  the  heroic  essence  of 
the  whole.  Actions  only  will  be  found  to  have  been 
preserved  when  writers  are  forgotten.  Homer  will 
one  day  be  swallowed  up  in  time,  and  so  will  all 
the  greatest  writers  that  have  ever  lived,  and  com- 
paratively this  is  very  little  matter.  But  actions  will 
not  be  destroyed,  their  influence  must  live  ;  good  or 
bad  they  will  live  throughout  eternity,  for  the  weal 
or  woe  of  the  doer  !  In  particular,  the  good  actions 
will  flow  on,  in  the  course  of  time  unseen  perhaps, 
but  just  as  a  river  of  water  flowing  underground, 
hidden  in  general,  but  at  intervals  breaking  out  to 
the  surface  in  many  a  well  for  the  refreshment  of 
men  ! 

In  our  next  lecture  we  shall  come  to  Dante. 


LECTURE  V. 

May  lAth 

SECOND   VERIOB— Continued 
Dante— The  Italians— Catholicism— Purgatory. 

We  are  now  arrived  at  that  point  of  history  when 
Europe  becomes  divided  ;  its  great  stem  branches 
off  into  different  nations,  one  nation  forming  itself 
after  another.  Each  nation  of  modern  Europe  dis- 
tinguishes itself  in  some  measure  from  all  other  na- 
tions. The  language  is  the  peculiar  product  of 
each  nation,  containing  something  of  its  own  not 
supplied  from  the  others  ;  the  function  so  appointed 
to  be  done  by  it,  and  the  genius  of  it,  everything 
belonging  to  it,  characterizes  each  nation.  We 
shall  take  them  in  their  order. 

The  first  nation  which  possesses  a  claim  on  our 
solicitude  is  the  Italian.  It  was  the  latest  nation  of 
tho^e  overrun  by  the  barbarians  which  fashioned  it- 
self into  something  of  an  articulate  result.  It  has 
much  distinguished  itself  in  Europe,  in  ancient,  as 
well  as  in  modern  times.  It  was  the  first  that  was 
notable  in  literature,  in  the  exposition  of  opinions, 


84  LOMBARDS   AND   GUISCARDS 

in  arts,  in  all  the  products  of  the  human  intellect. 
It  is  also  important  from  being  connected  with  that 
characteristic  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  religious  feel- 
ing then  prevalent.     It  was  the  latest  settled,  and 
the  first  notable  ;    it  was  the  last  modern  nation 
where  the  tumult  of  the  northern  emigrations  sub- 
sided.    The  Lombards  conquered  Italy  in  the  sixth 
century  ;  they  were  the  latest  of  the  German  tribes 
that  left  their  native  seat.     Paul  Diaconus  wrote 
their  history.     The  Lombards,  or  Longobardi  (Long- 
beards),  were  a  brave,  gifted,  excellent  nation  ;  they 
ruled  in  Italy  for  150  years,  after  which  time  it  split 
itself   into   a   number   of   small   principalities   and 
towns,  and  so  it  has  unhappily  continued  ever  since. 
The  next  memorable  event  is  the  conquest  of  the 
South  of  Italy  by  the  Guiscards,  in  the   eleventh 
century,  some  two  or  three  centuries  after  the  final 
decay  of  the  Lombard  power,.     They  were  the  sons 
of  Tancred  de  Hauteville,  the  most  impetuous  fight- 
ers Italy  ever  had  to  encounter.     The  part  where 
they  settled  was  that  which  was  remarked  to  have 
been   once   colonized    by   Greeks,    Magna   Grsecia, 
where  to  this  day  many  Greek  usages  are  still  pre- 
served.    Part  of  it  is  now  called  Naples  (Neapolis, 
new  town).     The   Saracens   had   gained  a  footing 
there,  and  to  dislodge  them  the  Prince  of  Apulia 
sent  for  Guiscard.     He  and  his  brother,  who  was 
called  Iron  Arm,  came  over  and  eventually  repelled 
the  Saracens.     It  was  a  great  thing  to  do  :  it  was 


ITALY    IN   THE   MIDDL"K    AGES  85 

not  much  more  tliau  100  years  after  these  Normans 
(Northmen)  had  emerged  from  the  condition  of  wild 
pirates,  and  settled  in  France,  which  was  also  about 
100  years  before  the  time  of  William  the  Conqueror. 
It  was  a  great  feat.  Naj)les  was  rendered  a  depend- 
ency of  Northern  Europe,  and  has  remained  so  ever 
since. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  the  third  memorable  cir- 
cumstance respecting  Italy,  the  existence  in  it  of 
the  Pope,  an  event  not  sudden  but  gradual  (1077 
was  the  culminating  age  of  this  political  power),  the 
Guiscards  would  have  conquered  all  Italy.  But 
the  Pope  had  by  this  time  got  settled,  and  had  ter- 
ritories of  his  own.  He  did  not  choose  to  permit 
the  Guiscards  to  make  further  encroachments  ;  ac- 
cordiugly,  he  interdicted  their  progress,  and  thus 
doomed  Italy  to  be  forever  divided,  and  politically 
speaking,  entirely  paralyzed.  If  the  Pope  or  the 
Guiscards,  no  matter  which,  had  got  ground  through- 
out Italy,  the  result  would  have  been  very  happy 
for  her,  but  it  was  not  her  lot.  Lingering  still 
there  in  Italy,  we  observe  that  she  occupies  very 
little  place  in  Europe  ;  but  Italy  has  a  peculiar 
character,  and  though  Italians  complain  that  their 
country  has  not  held  that  influence  in  modern 
Europe  to  which,  from  her  position  and  resources, 
she  is  entitled,  still  I  do  not  think  that  we  should 
say  that  her  part  has  not  been  a  great  one.  In  one 
respect  it  has  been  much  greater  than  that  of  any 


66  DANTE 

other  nation.  She  has  i^roduced  a  far  greater  num- 
ber of  great  men,  distinguished  in  art,  thinking, 
conduct,  and  everywhere  in  the  departments  of  in- 
tellect. Dante,  Eaphael,  Michael  Angelo,  among 
others,  are  hardly  to  be  paralleled,  in  the  respective 
department  of  each  of  these.  In  other  departments 
again,  there  are  Columbus,  Spinola,  and  Galileo. 
And,  after  all,  the  great  thing  which  any  nation  can 
do  is  to  produce  great  men.  It  is  thus  only  that  it 
distinguishes  itself  in  reality,  and  this  distinction 
lasts  longer  than  any  other.  A  battle  would  be  a 
comparatively  trivial  and  poor  thing  ! 

In  our  limits  it  is  impossible  to  attempt  the  de- 
lineation of  the  Italian  people  ;  but  in  every  people 
there  is  to  be  found  some  one  great  product  of  in- 
tellect, and  when  we  shall  have  exjDlained  the  sig- 
nificance of  that  one,  we  shall  not  fail  to  understand 
all  the  rest.  In  this  instance  we  shall  take  Dante, 
one  of  the  greatest  men  that  ever  lived ;  perLaps 
the  very  greatest  of  Italians,  certainly  one  of  the 
greatest.  The  Divina  Commedia  is  Dante's  work. 
He  was  from  Florence,  a  town  of  all  others  fertile  in 
great  men  ;  he  was  born  in  1265.  Florence  had  al- 
ready come  into  note  200  years  before  that ;  it  was 
first  founded  by  Sylla.  In  the  Middle  Ages  it 
played  a  great  part,  and  it  was  there  that  Dante 
was  born.  His  family  was  one  of  the  greatest  in 
Florence,  that  of  Durante  Alighieri  (Durante  since 
corrupted  to  Dante).     He  was  well  educated.     We 


GUELPUS    AND    GHIBELLINES  87 

hear  mention  made  of  the  schoolmaster  who  taught 
him  grammar,  and  other  great  men  of  the  day  who 
had  to  do  with  him  in  difterent  branches  of  educa- 
tion. He  was  much  occupied  in  pubUc  employ- 
ments in  his  native  town.  Twice  he  was  engaged 
in  battle,  on  one  occasion  with  the  Kepublic  of 
Pisa,  and  he  was  employed  in  fourteen  embassies. 
It  was  in  his  twenty-fifth  year  that  he  first  fought 
for  Florence — in  the  battle  of  Arezzo,  I  think  ;  and 
finally  he  became  Prior  or  chief  magistrate  of  Flo- 
rence. 

We  can  make  nothing  of  those  obscure  quarrels. 
They  have  no  interest  for  us — those  quarrels  of  the 
Guelphs  and  Ghibellines.  We  saw  the  foundation 
of  all  that  in  the  quarrel  of  Hildebrand  with  the 
Emperor.  Year  after  year  it  went  on,  generation 
after  generation.  The  people  that  favored  the  Pope 
were  called  Guelphs  ;  those  who  favored  the  Em- 
peror, Ghibellines.  The  Guelphs  were  German 
princes.  The  Ghibellines  were  so  named  from 
Weiblin,  a  town  of  the  Hohenstaufen,  near  Weins- 
berg.  Their  real  names  were  Welf  and  Weiblin. 
Weibhn  was  made  by  the  Italians  into  Ghibelline. 
The  Guelphs  were  the  ancestors  of  the  house  of 
Brunswick,  the  family  on  the  throne  of  these  realms. 
I  say  that  we  can  make  nothing  out  of  these  quar- 
rels, except  that  in  every  town  of  Italy  party  hatred 
prevailed  violently,  and  each  faction  directed  its  ut- 
most endeavors  to  supplant  the  other. 


bo  MISFORTUNES    OF   DANTE 

Dante  favored  the  side  of  the  Emperor.  There 
being  a  very  small  number  of  families  in  Florence, 
party  hatred  was  proportionally  more  violent.  Ban- 
ishments of  the  highest  personages  were  quite  com- 
mon there,  and  were  employed  as  often  as  one  party 
was  trodden  down  by  its  enemies.  Dante  accord- 
ingly, being  then  absent  upon  some  embassy,  was 
banished  by  his  enemies.  He  was  then  in  his  thirty- 
fifth  year.  He  afterward  made  some  attempt,  with 
others  of  his  friends,  to  get  back  to  Florence,  and 
made  an  attack  by  arms  upon  the  city,  which,  prov- 
ing unsuccessful,  so  exasperated  the  citizens  that 
nothing  could  appease  them.  Dante  was  then  as 
good  as  confiscated  ;  he  had  been  fined  before  that. 
There  is  still  to  be  seen  an  act  of  that  time  in  the 
archives  of  Florence,  charging  all  magistrates  to 
burn  Dante  alive  when  he  should  be  taken,  such 
violent  hatred  had  they  conceived  against  him! 
Dante  was  afterward  reduced  to  wander  up  and 
down  Italy,  a  broken  man  !  His  way  of  life  is  diffi- 
cult to  conceive  of,  with  so  violent  a  mind  as  his, 
with  such  deep  feelings,  whether  sad  or  joyful. 
Henceforth  he  had  sorrow  for  his  portion.  It  is 
very  mournful  to  think  of,  but,  at  the  same  time, 
the  work  he  had  to  do  could  not  have  been  done  so 
well  had  his  lot  been  less  unhappy.  He  was  ever  a 
serious  man,  always  meditating  on  some  religious  or 
moral  subject.  After  his  misfortunes,  besides,  there 
was  no  hope  extant  for  him  ;  he  tells  us  that  he  had 


THE   DIVINA    COMMEDIA  89 

left  everything  he  could  love.  This  gave  him  double 
and  treble  earnestness  of  character.  The  world  was 
now  all  over  for  him  ;  he  looked  now  only  to  the 
great  kingdom  of  eternity  !  It  has  been  disputed 
whether  he  had  begun  the  Divina  Commedia  before 
he  left  Florence.  He  had,  at  all  events,  not  wiitten 
much  of  it.  He  completed  it  in  his  exile,  that  he 
might  secure  to  himself  powerful  friends,  who  could 
shelter  him ;  and  he  therefore  got  it  published,  to 
be  descanted  on  now  500  years  after  that,  and  to 
continue  to  be  so  for  1,000  years  and  more  to  come  ! 
There  are  few  things  that  exist  worth  comparing 
to  it.  ^schylus,  Dante,  Shakespeare — one  really 
cannot  add  another  greater  name  to  these  !  Theirs 
were  the  utterances  out  of  the  great  heart  of  nat- 
ure, sincere  outpourings  of  the  mind  of  man  !  His 
Divina  Commedia  assumes  at  first  the  form  of  a 
vision,  though  it  soon  loses  it  as  he  proceeds.  In- 
deed, he  nowhere  expressly  announces  it  at  all, 
though  he  begins  suddenly,  as  if  it  were  a  vision. 
The  three  great  kingdoms  of  Eternity  are  the  sub- 
ject of  the  poem  :  Hell,  the  place  of  final  expiation 
of  guilt,  where  a  stern,  inexorable  justice  reigns 
without  pity,  charged  to  inflict  punishments  for  in- 
fraction of  the  laws  of  the  Most  High  ;  Purgatory, 
a  place  where  the  sin  of  man  is,  under  certain  con- 
ditions, cleansed  away ;  and  Paradise,  where  the 
soul  enjoys  felicity  forever !  This  was  the  greatest 
idea  that  we  have   ever  yet  had — the  experience  of 


90  CHARACTER   OF   THE   POEM 

entering  into  the  soul  of  man,  more  full  of  grandeur 
than  any  other  of  the  elements,  and  it  fell  to  the  lot 
of  one  who  was  singularly  appropriated  by  his  way 
of  life  for  the  task.  He  was  a  man  full  of  sorrows, 
a  man  of  woe  ;  by  nature  of  a  serious  turn  of  mind, 
and  rendered  doubly  and  trebly  so  by  his  way  of 
life.  Accordingly,  I  think  that  when  all  records  of 
Catholicism  shall  have  passed  away  ;  when  the  Vati- 
can shall  have  crumbled  into  dust,  and  St.  Peter's 
and  Strasburg  Minster  be  no  more  ;  for  thousands 
of  years  to  come  Catholicism  will  survive  in  this 
sublime  relic  of  antiquity  ! 

^  In  seeking  the  character  of  Dante's  poem,  we 
shall  admire  first  that  grand  natural,  moral  depth, 
that  nobleness  of  heart,  that  grandeur  of  soul  which 
distinguish  him.  Great  in  all  directions,  in  his 
wrath,  his  scorn,  his  pity.  Great  above  all  in  his 
sorrow  !  That  is  a  fine  thing  which  he  says  of  those 
in  a  state  of  despair,  "They  have  not  the  Hope  to 
die  " — ''  Non  hanno  speranza  di  morte  !  "  What  an 
idea  that  is  in  Dante's  mind  there  of  death.  To 
most  persons  death  is  the  dreaded  being,  the  king 
of  terrors,  but  to  Dante  to  be  imprisoned  forever  in 
a  miserable  complexity,  without  hope  of  release,  is 
the  most  terrible  of  things !  Indeed,  I  believe,  not- 
withstanding the  horror  of  death,  no  human  creat- 
ure but  would  find  it  to  be  the  most  dreadful  doom 
not  to  be  suffered  to  die,  though  he  should  be 
decreed  to  enjoy  all  youth  and  bloom  immortally  ! 


Dante's  greatness  91 

For  there  is  a  boundlessness,  an  endless  longing  in 
the  breast,  which  aspires  to  another  world  tlum  this. 
That,  too,  is  a  striking  passage  where  he  says  of 
certain  individuals  that  they  are  hateful  to  God, 
and  to  the  enemies  of  God.  There  was  a  deep  feel- 
ing in  Dante  of  the  enormity  of  that  moral  base- 
ness, such  as  had  never  before  gone  into  the  mind 
of  any  man.  These  of  whom  he  speaks  were  a  kind 
of  trimmers  ;  men  that  had  not  even  the  merit  to 
join  with  the  devil.  He  adds  :  "  Xon  7'agiomam  di' 
lor,  ma  guarda  epaasa!" — "Let  us  say  nothing  of 
them,  but  look  and  pass  !  "  The  central  quality  of 
Dante  was  greatness  of  heart  ;  from  this  all  the 
others  flowed  as  from  a  natural  source.  This  must 
exist  in  every  man  that  would  be  great ;  it  is  impos- 
sible for  him  to  do  anything  good  without  it,  and 
by  his  success  we  may  trace,  in  every  writer,  his 
magnanimity  and  his  pusillanimity.  In  Dante  there 
was  the  greatness  of  simplicity,  for  one  thing.  All 
things  are  to  be  anticipated  from  the  nobleness 
of  his  moral  opinions.  Logically  speaking,  again, 
Dante  had  one  of  the  finest  understandings,  re- 
markable in  all  matters  of  reason  ;  as,  for  instance, 
in  his  reflections  on  fortune,  free-will,  and  the  nat- 
ure of  sin.  He  was  an  original,  quick,  far-seeing 
man,  possessing  a  deep  insight  into  all  matters,  and 
this,  combined  with  the  other  quality  which  we  no- 
ticed, his  greatness  of  heart,  constitutes  the  princi- 
pal charm  in  Dante.     In  the  third  place,  his  poem 


9a  DANTE   AND   MILTON 

was  so  musical  that  it  got  up  to  the  length  of  sing- 
ing itself,  his  soul  was  in  it ;  and  when  we  read 
there  is  a  tune  which  hurries  itself  along.  These 
qualities,  a  great  heart,  insight,  and  song,  are  the 
stamp  of  a  genuine  poem  at  all  times.  They  will 
not  be  peculiar  to  any  one  age,  but  will  be  natural 
in  all  ages.  For,  as  I  observed,  it  is  the  utterance 
of  the  heart  of  life  itself,  and  all  earnest  men,  of 
whatever  age,  will  there  behold  as  in  a  mirror  the 
» image  of  their  own  convexed  beam,  and  will  be 
grateful  to  the  poet  for  the  brotherhood  to  him  in 
which  they  stand.  Then  as  to  simplicity,  there  is 
in  the  poem  throughout  that  noble  character,  inso- 
much that  one  would  almost  suppose  that  there  is 
nothing  great  there.  For  he  remains  intent  upon 
the  delineation  of  his  subject,  never  guilty  of  bom- 
bastic inflation,  and  does  not  seem  to  think  that  he 
is  doing  anything  very  remarkable.  Herein  he  is 
very  different  from  Milton.  Milton,  with  all  his 
genius,  was  very  inferior  to  Dante,  he  has  made 
his  angels  large,  huge,  distorted  beings.  He  has 
sketched  vividly  his  scenes  of  heaven  and  hell,  and 
his  faculty  is  certainly  great ;  but  I  say  that  Dante's 
task  was  the  great  thing  to  do.  He  has  opened  the 
deep,  unfathomable  oasis  of  woe  that  lay  in  the  soul 
of  man  ;  he  has  opened  the  living  fountains  of  hope, 
also  of  penitence  !  And  this  I  say  is  far  greater 
than  towering  as  high  as  Teneriffe,  or  twice  as 
high  ! 


THE   INFERNO  93 

In  his  delineations  he  has  a  most  beautiful  sharp 
grace,  the  quickest  and  clearest  intellect.  It  is  just 
that  honesty  with  which  his  mind  was  set  upon  his 
subject,  that  carries  it  out.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
scene  of  the  monster  Geryon,  with  Virgil  and 
Dante,  where  he  describes  how  he  landed  with  them 
in  the  eighth  circle.  He  says  that  Geryon  was  like 
a  falcon  in  quest  of  prey,  hovering  without  seeing 
either  the  lure  or  the  game.  When  the  falconer 
cries,  "  Oim^  tu  call "  ("  Come  down  !  "),  he  descends, 
wheeling  round  and  round,  and  sits  at  a  distance 
disdainful  and  disobedient.  Just  so  was  Geryon. 
And  then  he  bolted  up  like  an  arrow  out  of  the 
bow.  There  are  not  above  a  dozen  words  in  this 
picture,  but  it  is  one  that  will  last  forever ! 

So  also  his  description  of  the  city  of  Dis,  to  which 
Virgil  carries  him,  possesses  a  beautiful  simplicity 
and  honesty.  "  The  light  was  so  dim  that  the  peo- 
ple could  hardly  see,  and  they  winked  at  him,  just 
as  people  wink  their  eyes  under  the  new  moon,"  or 
as  an  old  tailor  winks  threading  his  needle,  when 
his  eyes  are  not  good.  There  is  a  contrast  between 
his  subject  and  this  quaint  similitude  that  has  a 
beautiful  effect.  It  brings  one  home  to  the  subject ; 
there  is  much  reality  in  this  similitude.  So  his  de- 
scrij^tion  of  the  place  they  were  in.  Flakes  of  fire 
came  down  like  snow,  falling  on  the  skin  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  burning  them  black  !  Among  these  he 
sees  his  old  schoolmaster  who  taught  him  grammar, 


94  FRANCESCA 

be  winks  at  liim  in  the  manner  described,  but  be  is 
so  burnt  that  Dante  can  hardly  recognize  him. 

There  are  many  of  his  greatest  qualities  in  the 
celebrated  passage  about  Francesca,  whom  he  finds 
in  the  circle  of  Inferno  appropriated  to  those  who 
had  erred  in  love.  I  many  times  say  I  know  no- 
where of  a  more  striking  passage  ;  if  anyone  would 
select  a  passage  characteristic  of  a  great  man,  let 
him  study  that.  It  is  as  tender  as  the  voice  of 
mothers,  full  of  the  gentlest  pity,  though  there  is 
much  stern  tragedy  in  it.  It  is  very  touching.  In 
a  place  without  light,  which  groaned  like  a  stormy 
sea,  he  sees  two  shadows  which  he  wishes  to  speak 
to,  and  they  come  to  him.  He  compares  them  to 
doves  whose  wings  are  open  and  not  fluttering. 
Francesca,  one  of  these,  utters  her  complaint,  which 
does  not  occupy  twenty  lines,  though  it  is  such  an 
one  that  a  man  may  write  a  thousand  lines  about  it, 
and  not  do  ill.  It  contains  beautiful  touches  of 
human  weakness.  She  feels  that  stern  justice  en- 
circles her  all  around.  "  Oh,  living  creature,"  she 
says,  "  who  hast  come  so  kindly  to  visit  us,  if  the 
Creator  of  the  World  "  (poor  Francesca  !  she  knew 
that  she  had  sinned  against  His  inexorable  justice) 
"were  our  friend,  we  would  pray  Him  for  thy 
peace  !  "  Love,  which  soon  teaches  itself  to  a  gen- 
tle heart,  inspired  her  Paolo  (beautiful  womanly 
feeling  that).  "Love  forbids  that  the  person  loved 
shall  not  love  in  return."     And  so  she  loved  Paolo. 


UGOLINO  95 

"  Caina  awaits  him  who  destroyed  our  life,"  she 
adds  with  female  vehemence.  Then,  in  three  lines, 
she  tells  the  story  how  they  fell  in  love.  "  We  read 
one  day  of  Launcelot,  how  love  possessed  him  ;  we 
were  alone,  we  regarded  one  another ;  when  we 
read  of  that  laughing  kiss,  he,  trembling,  kissed 
me  !     That  day,"  she  adds,  ''  we  read  no  farther  !  " 

The  whole  is  beautiful,  like  a  clear,  piping  voice 
heard  in  the  middle  of  a  whirlwind  :  it  is  so  sweet, 
and  gentle,  and  good  ! 

Then  the  hunger  power  of  Ugolino.  This,  how- 
ever, is  a  much  more  brutal  thing  than  the  punish- 
ment of  Francesca.  But  the  story  of  Francesca  is 
all  a  truth.  He  says  that  he  knew  her  father  ;  her 
history  becomes  a  kind  of  concern  in  the  mind  of 
Dante,  and  when  he  hears  her  relate  it  he  falls  as  a 
dead  body  falls.  This,  too,  is  an  answer  to  a  criti- 
cism against  Dante,  and  a  paltry  criticism  it  is. 
Some  have  regarded  the  poem  as  a  kind  of  satire 
upon  his  enemies,  on  whom  he  revenged  himself  by 
putting  them  into  hell.  Now,  nothing  is  more  un- 
worthy of  Dante  than  such  a  theory.  If  he  had 
been  of  such  an  ignoble  nature,  he  never  could 
have  written  the  Divina  Gommedia.  It  was  written 
in  the  purest  spirit  of  justice.  Thus  he  pitied  poor 
Francesca,  and  would  not  have  willingly  placed  her 
in  that  torment ;  but  it  was  the  justice  of  God's  law 
that  doomed  her  there  ! 

How  beautiful  is  his  description   of  the  coming 


96  FARINATA 

eve,  the  hour  when  sorrow  awakens  in  the  hearts  of 
sailors  who  have  left  their  land  (sguilla  di  lontano), 
the  dying  day.  No  one  ever  quitted  home  and 
loved  ones  whose  heart  does  not  respond  to  that ! 

We  must  not  omit  Farinata,  the  beautiful  illustra- 
tion of  a  character  much  found  in  Dante.  He  is 
confined  in  the  black  dome  where  the  heretics 
dwell.  In  the  same  tomb  is  Cavalcante  de'  Caval- 
canti,  father  of  one  of  Dante's  most  loved  friends. 
The  description  is  striking  of  the  sarcophaguses  in 
which  these  people  are  enclosed,  "  more  or  less 
heated  "  (there  is  nothing  in  Teneriffe  like  that)  ; 
the  lids  are  to  be  kejot  open  till  the  last  day,  and 
are  then  to  be  sealed  down  forever.  He  hears 
Dante  speaking  in  the  Tuscan  dialect,  and  he  ac- 
costs him.  He  is  a  man  of  great  haughtiness  {gran 
dispitto,  sdegnoso).  This  spirit  of  defiance  of  suffer- 
ing, so  remarkable  in  ^schylus,  occurs  two  or 
three  times  in  Dante.  Farinata  asks  him.  What 
news  of  Florence  ?  For  in  all  his  long  exile  Dante 
himself  thinks  continually  of  Florence,  which  he 
loves  so  well,  and  he  makes  even  those  in  torment 
anxious  after  what  is  doing  in  Florence.  Then 
Cavalcanti  asks  Dante  why  is  he  there,  and  not  his 
son.  Where  is  he  ?  And  Dante  replies  that  per- 
haps he  had  disdain  for  Virgil.  Had  ?  Cavalcanti 
asks  (Ebbe)  ;  does  he  not  live  then  ?  And,  as  Dante 
pauses  a  little  without  replying,  he  plunges  down, 
and  Dante  sees  him  no  more  ! 


DANTE   AND    FLORENCE  97 

These  sudden  and  abrupt  motions  are  frequent  in 
Dante.  He  is,  indeed,  full  of  what  I  can  call  mili- 
tary movements ;  many  of  his  gestures  are  ex- 
tremely siguiticant.  In  another  place  three  men 
*' looked  at  one  another,  like  men  that  believed." 
In  these  words  one  sees  it  all,  as  it  seemed  to 
Dante  !  This  is  a  feature  I  don't  know  how  to 
name  well,  but  it  is  very  remarkable  in  Dante. 
Those  passages  are  very  striking  where  he  alludes 
to  his  own  sad  fortunes.  There  is  in  them  a  wild 
sorrow,  a  savage  tone  of  truth,  a  breaking  heart ; 
the  hatred  of  Florence,  and  with  it  the  love  of  Flor- 
ence !  In  one  place,  "  Rejoice,  O  Florence,  that 
thou  art  so  famous  in  hell !  "  In  another  place  he 
calls  her  hell-guided.  His  old  schoolmaster  tells 
him  :  "If  thou  follow  thy  star,  thou  canst  not  miss 
a  happy  harbor."  That  was  just  it.  That  star  oc- 
casionally shone  on  him  from  the  blue  eternal 
depths,  and  he  felt  he  was  doing  something  good  ; 
but  he  soon  lost  it  again  as  he  fell  back  into  the 
trough  of  the  sea,  and  had  to  journey  on  as  before. 
And  when  his  ancestor  predicts  his  banishment, 
there  is  the  wild  sincerity  again.  He  must  leave 
every  delightful  thing ;  he  must  learn  to  dwell  on 
the  stairs  of  another  man.  Bitter !  bitter !  Poor 
exile,  none  but  scoundrelly  persons  to  associate 
with !  There  are  traces  here  and  there  of  a  heart 
one  would  always  wish  to  see  in  man.     He  is  not 

altogether,    therefore,    an    unconscious    man    like 

7 


98  IL   PURGATOEIO 

Shakespeare,  but  more  morbid  and  narrower. 
Though  he  does  not  attempt  to  compute  it,  he 
seems  to  feel  merely  the  conviction,  the  humble 
hope,  that  he  shall  get  to  heaven  in  the  end ! 

A  notable  passage  that  on  fame  !  No  man,  if  he 
"were  Alexander  the  Great,  if  he  were  Dante,  if  he 
were  all  men  put  together,  could  get  for  himself 
eternal  fame  !  He  feels  that,  too.  Fame  is  not  of 
any  particular  moment  to  him.  That  contradiction 
between  the  greatness  of  his  mind  and  his  humble 
attachment  to  Florence  is  difficult  of  utterance,  and 
it  seems  as  if  the  spirit  of  the  man  were  hampered 
with  the  insufficient  dialects  this  world  imposes 
upon  him. 

The  "Inferno"  has  become  of  late  times  mainly 
the  favorite  of  the  three  divisions  of  Dante's  great 
poem.  It  has  harmonized  well  with  the  taste  of 
the  last  thirty  or  forty  years,  in  which  EuroiDC  has 
seemed  to  covet  more  a  violence  of  emotion  and  a 
strength  of  convulsion  than  almost  any  other  quality. 
It  is  no  doubt  a  great  thing  ;  but  to  my  mind  the 
''Purgatorio  "  is  excellent  also,  and  I  question  even 
whether  it  is  not  a  better  and  a  greater  thing  on  the 
whole.  It  is  very  beautiful  to  see  them  get  up  into 
that  black,  great  mountain  in  the  western  ocean, 
where  Columbus  had  not  yet  been.  To  trace  gii^o 
after  giro,  the  purification  of  souls  is  beautiful  ex- 
ceedingly ;  the  sinners'  repentance,  the  humble  hoj)e, 
the  peace  and  joy  that  is  in  them. 


dante's  doctkine  99 

There  is  no  book  so  moral  as  this,  the  very  essence 
of  Christian  morality  !  Men  have,  of  course,  ceased 
to  believe  these  things — that  mountain  rising  up  in 
the  ocean,  or  that  Male-bolge,  with  its  black  gulfs. 
But  still  men  of  any  knowledge  at  all  must  believe 
that  there  exists  the  inexorable  justice  of  God,  and 
that  penitence  is  the  great  thing  here  for  man.  For 
life  is  but  a  series  of  errors,  made  good  again  by 
repentance  ;  and  the  sacredness  of  that  doctrine 
is  asserted  in  Dante  in  a  manner  more  moral  than 
anywhere  else.  Any  other  doctrine  is  with  him 
comparatively  not  worth  affirming  or  denying.  Very 
touching  is  that  gentle  patience,  that  unspeakable 
thankfulness  with  which  the  souls  expect  their 
release  after  thousands  of  years.  Cato  is  keeping 
the  gate.  That  is  a  beautiful  dawn  of  morning. 
The  dawn  drove  away  the  darkness  westward,  with 
a  quivering  of  the  sea  on  the  horizon. 

"  Si  clie  di  lontano 
Conobbi  al  tremolar  della  marina." 

He  seems  to  seize  the  word  for  it.  Anybody  who 
has  seen  the  sun  rise  at  sea  will  recognize  it.  The 
internal  feeling  of  the  "  Purgatorio  "  keeps  pace  with 
that.  One  man  says:  "Tell  my  Giovanna  that  I 
think  her  mother  does  not  love  me  now  " — that  she 
has  laid  aside  her  weeds  !  The  parable  with  which 
he  concludes  his  lament  is  as  beautiful  as  it  can  be. 
i^hen,  too,  the  relation  he  stands  in  to  Virgil  and 


100  BEATRICE 

Beatrice  ;  his  loyalty,  faith,  and  kindly  feeling  for 
Virgil's  nobleness.  Loyalty,  we  remarked,  was  the 
essence  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Virgil  was  never  angry 
with  him  but  once,  when  Dante  seems  to  pay  too 
much  attention  to  two  falsifiers  quarrelling.  "A 
little  more,"  he  says,  "  and  I  would  quarrel  with 
thee."  Dante  owns  himself  in  the  wrong,  and  Vir- 
gil then  tells  him  it  is  not  proper  to  listen  to  such 
things.  Beatrice  was  actually  a  beautiful  little  girl, 
whom  he  had  seen  in  his  boyhood  at  a  ball.  She 
was  a  young  child,  nine  years  old  when  he  was  ten. 
He  had  never  heard  her  speak  but  once,  when  she 
was  talking  to  some  one  at  the  corner  of  the  street. 
She  was  cinctured  with  a  garland  of  olive,  and  ap- 
peared "  mirce  pulchiitudinis."  Such  was  the  mood 
of  beauty,  he  says,  in  which  her  aspect  placed  him, 
that  that  night,  when  he  fell  asleep,  he  dreamed 
of  her.  This  was  at  nine  o'clock,  for  though  it 
was  many  years  after  he  remembered  it  quite  well. 
They  had  met  but  little,  but  he  seemed  to  know 
that  she  loved  him,  as  he  her.  She  married  another 
afterwards,  but  not  willingl}'.  When  all  else  is  dark 
with  misery  for  him,  this  is  the  only  recollection 
that  is  beautiful,  for  nothing  had  occurred  to  render 
it  disagreeable  to  him,  and  his  whole  soul  flies  to  it. 
Providence  sent  an  angel  always  to  interfere  when 
the  w^orst  came.  In  Paradise,  when  Virgil  vanishes 
and  he  sees  Beatrice,  by  this  time  purified  from 
mortal  stain,  how  deep  is  the  expression  of  his  joy  ! 


THE   MOTHER  OF  feE'Al'KIOE  lOl 

How  heavily  the  love  he  bore  her  weighed  upon  his 
heart !  The  mother  of  Beatrice  treated  him  with 
much  seeming  harshness  (barbarezza),  wasting  his 
very  life  away  with  severity  ;  but  it  was  all  through 
her  apprehension  that  if  she  were  to  give  vent  to  her 
love  for  him  she  should  kill  him  ;  it  would  be  too 
much  for  him.  But  he  reads  in  her  eye  all  the  while 
her  deep  affection  ;  in  the  flush  of  joy  with  which  she 
regards  him,  his  successes,  and  good  actions.  One 
can  well  understand,  in  this  point  of  view,  what  the 
Germans  say  of  the  three  parts  of  the  Dimna  Comme- 
dia.  The  first  is  the  architectural,  plastic  part,  as  of 
statuary  ;  the  second  is  the  pictorial ;  the  third  is 
the  musical,  the  melting  into  song. 

But  I  can  afford  no  more  time  to  speak  of  Dante. 
My  friends  must  endeavor  to  supply  the  omissions 
I  have  been  obliged  to  make,  and  to  expand  what 
I  have  said  over  his  whole  poem.  We  must  quit 
Italy  and  Dante  altogether  with  these  imperfect  re- 
marks. 


LECTURE    VI. 

May  ISth 

SECOND  FERIOB— Continued 

The  Spaniards— Chivalry— Greatness  of  the  Span- 
ish Nation— Cervantes,  his  Life,  his  Book — 
Lope— Calderon— Protestantism  and  the  Dutch 
War. 

In  our  last  lecture  we  saw  the  remarkable  plienom- 
enon  of  one  great  mind  making  of  himself,  as  it 
were,  the  spokesman  of  his  age,  and  speaking  with 
such  an  earnestness  and  depth  that  he  has  become 
one  of  the  voices  of  mankind  itself,  making  his  voice 
to  be  heard  in  all  ages,  for  he  was  filled  in  every 
fibre  of  his  mind  with  that  princiiDle,  belief  in  the 
Catholic  Church :  this  was  the  model  by  which  all 
things  became  satisfactorily  arranged  for  him  in  his 
mind.  We  must  now  leave  that  altogether  abruptly, 
and  come  to  the  next  great  phenomenon  in  this 
history,  a  new  nation,  new  products  in  the  human 
mind.  I  allude  to  Cervantes  and  chivalry.  But 
before  I  come  to  that  I  may  observe  that  Dante's 
way  of  thinking  was  one  which  from  its  very  nature 


WIDENING   OF   KNOWLEDGE  103 

could  not  long  continue  ;  indeed,  it  is  not  given  to 
man  that  any  of  his  works  should  long  continue,  of 
the  works  of  his  mind,  any  more  than  the  things 
which  he  makes  with  his  hand.  But  there  was 
something  in  the  very  nature  of  Dante's  way  of 
thinking  which  made  it  very  natural  that  it  should 
have  become  generally  altered  even  in  the  next  gen- 
eration. Dante's  son  even  must  have  lived  in  an  in- 
creased horizon  of  knowledge,  which  the  theory  of 
Dante  could  no  longer  fit ;  as,  for  example,  man  had 
then  sailed  to  the  Western  Ocean,  and  had  found 
that  the  Mountain  of  Purgatory  was  not  there  at  all. 
Indeed,  if  we  look  at  it,  we  shall  find  that  every  man 
is  first  a  learner,  an  apprentice,  and  then  a  work- 
man, who  at  first  schemes  out  to  himself  such 
knowledge  as  his  fathers  teach  him  into  quite  a 
familiar  theory  ;  but  the  first  researches  will  further 
widen  his  circle  of  knowledge,  and  he  will  have  cer- 
tain misgivings  as  to  the  theory,  the  creed  I  may 
call  it,  of  the  universe  which  he  has  already  adopted, 
certain  suspicions  in  his  own  mind  that  there  are 
inconsistencies  and  contradictions  in  his  theory  not 
at  all  satisfactory,  and  this  will  go  on  increasing 
until  this  theory  alters  itself,  shapes  itself  to  them. 

In  Italy  the  same  Catholic  Church,  which  was 
the  mother  of  the  mind  of  Dante,  inspiring  it  with 
every  feeling  and  thought  that  was  there,  afterwards 
condemned  Galileo  to  renounce  what  he  knew  to  be 
true  because  it  was  at  that  time  supposed  to  be 


104  PROGRESS   INEVITABLE 

contrary  to  the  tenets  the  Church  held  on  the  sub- 
ject, forcing  him  to  be  either  the  martyr  of  the  In- 
quisition or  to  deny  the  truth.  Indeed,  before  that, 
Europe  had  spHt  itself  into  all  kinds  of  confusions 
and  contradictions  without  end,  in  which  we  are 
still  enveloped.  This,  in  short,  is  the  foundation 
and  essence  of  the  progress  of  the  human  mind, 
which,  in  spite  of  the  exaggerations  and  the  mis- 
representations which  have  been  made  of  it,  is  really 
the  inevitable  law  for  man,  to  go  on,  and  to  continue 
to  widen  his  investigations  for  thousands  of  years,  or 
even  for  millions,  for  there  is  no  limit  to  it !  Any 
theory  of  Nature  is,  at  most,  temporary  ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  all  theories  contain  something  within 
them  which  is  perennial.  In  Dante  that  was  belief, 
the  communion  which  the  heart  of  hearts  can  hold 
with  Nature.  The  human  soul,  in  fact,  develops 
itself  into  all  sorts  of  opinions,  doctrines  which  go 
on  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  truth.  All  theories  ap- 
proximate more  or  less  to  the  great  Theory,  which 
remains  itself  always  unknown,  and  in  that  propor- 
tion contain  somethinof  which  must  live.  There- 
fore,  whatever  opinion  we  may  form  of  his  doc- 
trines, we  do  not  dissent  from  Dante's  piety,  that 
will  always  be  admired.  There  is  no  nation,  too, 
without  progress.  Some  people  say  that  the  Chinese 
are  without  it ;  perhaps  they  may  change  less  rapid- 
ly than  other  nations,  but  they  must  change.  It 
appears  to  me  to  be  inevitably  necessary.     Every 


GROWTH   OF   UNIVERSITIES  105 

philosophy  that  exists  is  destined  to  be  embraced, 
melted  down  as  it  were,  into  some  larger  philosophy, 
which,  too,  will  have  to  suffer  the  same  some  day. 

Cervantes  lived  more  than  two  centuries  after 
Dante  ;  though  we  select  him  as  the  most  remark- 
able of  his  age  there  were,  no  doubt,  before  him 
many  other  people  very  valuable  in  influencing  the 
human  mind.  All  people,  indeed,  from  Charle- 
magne's time,  had  already  made  rapid  advances  in 
all  departments  of  culture.  We  may  here  remark 
one  or  two  symptoms  of  that  restless  effort  after 
advancement  then  in  action  everywhere  in  Europe. 
First  there  was  the  institution  of  universities,  which 
was  long  before  Dante.  The  University  of  Paris 
had  come  into  decided  note  in  the  time  of  Dante. 
There  is  a  tradition  that  Dante  himself  was  at  it,  as 
there  is  a  vague  tradition  that  he  was  at  Oxford  too, 
but  this  last  is  very  doubtful.  These  universities 
of  Europe  grew  up  in  a  very  obscure  manner,  not 
noted  at  first,  but  rising  up  quite  naturally  and 
spontaneously.  Some  great  teacher,  such  as  Abe- 
lard,  would  get  into  repute  with  those  who  were 
eagerly  desirous  of  learning,  and  there  would  be  no 
other  way  of  learning  his  knowledge  except  to  gather 
round  him  and  hear  him  expound  what  knowledge 
he  had  in  his  own  department.  When  any  other 
teacher  would  be  desirous  of  disj)laying  his  own 
branch  of  acquirements  he  would  naturally  estab- 
lish  himself  in  the   neighborhood  of  the  first  one, 


106  PRINTING 

and  so  these  many  teachers  would  begin  to  gather 
themselves  together  till  their  community  should  be- 
come known  generally,  and  more  young  men  would 
resort  to  them,  until  finally  the  king,  as  did  the 
King  of  France,  would  take  notice  of  them,  form 
them  into  a  corporation,  endow  them  with  lands, 
and  style  the  establishment  university — the  place  of 
a  complete,  settled  course  of  instruction.  It  was 
about  the  ninth  century  that  Paris  was  first  recog- 
nized as  an  university,  others  soon  followed,  and  the 
system  so  founded  continues  down  to  our  times. 
One  cause  may  be  assigned  for  their  existence,  the 
want  of  books. 

Books  at  that  period  were  not  easily  to  be  pro- 
cured, and  except  by  means  of  lecturing  none  could 
learn  what  knowledge  there  was  then  to  be  attained. 
But  this  want  became  supplied  by  another  great 
symptom  of  European  improvement,  the  invention  of 
the  art  of  printing  in  the  century  after  Dante,  that 
is  to  say,  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  and  beginning  of 
the  sixteenth  centuries.  There  are  many  contro- 
versies as  to  where  it  was  invented,  but  it  is  not 
necessary  to  examine  them  here.  Faust  brought  it 
into  full  use  about  the  year  1450.  It  is  one  very 
great  fact  productive  of  important  results  for  man- 
kind, and  one  which  has  not  clearly  unfolded  itself 
yet ;  but  it  was  by  no  means  a  wonderful  invention, 
it  was  quite  a  corollary  from  another  great  art,  writ- 
ing, a  much  more  wonderful  achievement,  yet  com- 


GUNPOWDER  107 

paratively  insignificant  too,  compared  with  that  ad- 
mirable gift  of  speech,  that  power  which  man  has 
of  expressing  his  meaning  by  certain  sounds  ! 

Another  symptom  of  the  change  of  habits  in  Eu- 
rope is  the  invention  of  gunpowder,  which  took 
place  prior  to  the  century  before  the  invention  of 
printing,  two  centuries  we  may  say  ;  but  the  time 
of  this  invention  is  not  known  either  ;  also  some  at- 
tribute it  to  Friar  Bacon,  and  others  to  Swartz.  It 
does  not  seem  a  very  beneficent  invention  this,  de- 
signed for  the  destruction  of  man  ;  but  yet,  on  the 
whole,  it  has  had  immense  consequences  of  the  bene- 
ficial sort,  for,  like  all  other  things  in  military  art,  it 
softens  the  miseries  of  war,  and,  we  may  add,  with- 
out entering  into  any  wide  conclusions  about  it,  it 
is  really  the  setting  of  the  soul  of  man  above  the 
body  of  man,  since  it  has  reduced  physical  strength 
all  to  nothing  in  the  contests  between  man  and  man, 
insomuch  that,  give  the  weakest  woman  a  pistol,  and 
she  instantly  becomes  a  Goliath  with  that  pistol  in 
her  hand !  A  great  invention  that ;  so  busy  were 
these  ages  in  their  efforts  after  progress  ! 

We  shall  now  proceed  to  look  at  the  Spaniards, 
and  the  results  they  realized  for  themselves  in  this 
world  of  ours.  The  two  great  things  which  we  have 
remarked  in  the  Middle  Ages— first,  Christianity  : 
the  Catholic  religion  ;  and  next,  loyalty — had  main- 
ly the  influence  over  Dante's  works.  That  same 
spirit  of  loyalty  obtained,  however,  a  practical  illus- 


108  AGE   OF   CHIVALRY 

tration  of  a  striking  character,  which  received  the 
name  of  Chivah-y.  This,  we  may  say,  was  the  great 
product  of  the  Spanish  nation.  It  seems  very  ex- 
traordinary that  Christianity,  which  is  against  war 
altogether,  teaching  men  even  not  to  resist  violence, 
should,  with  its  divine  spirit,  have  penetrated  even 
into  war  itself,  making  it  in  the  highest  degree  no- 
ble and  beneficial ;  that  that  dark  background  which 
lies  in  every  man,  and  which  tells  him  that  he  can 
fight,  and  makes  war  at  all  times  possible  for  man, 
that  even  this  should  have  been  penetrated  with 
that  sj)irit,  and  raised  by  it  to  an  elevation,  a  noble- 
ness, a  beauty  quite  distinguished  from  anything  in 
the  pagan  world  ! 

The  age  of  chivalry  has  been  the  subject  of  all 
kinds  of  investigations,  but  writers  have  been  able 
to  find  no  physical  origin  for  it.  It  seems  to  have 
been  produced  by  the  German  spirit  united  to  that 
of  the  Christian  doctrine.  Among  the  Germans 
courage  in  battle  was  greatly  honored.  According 
to  Tacitus,  when  a  young  man  aspired  to  manhood, 
he  was  solemnly  led  into  the  Public  Assembly,  tliere 
girt  with  a  sword,  and  proclaimed  a  fighter  and  a 
man. 

This  is  very  analogous  to  the  ceremonies  of 
knighthood,  chivalry.  This  German  quality,  valor 
of  character,  combined  with  the  Christian  religion, 
as  well  as  with  another  feature  of  the  Germans,  their 
reverence  for  women,  which  also  became  a  feature 


THE   SPANIARDS  109 

of  chivalry.  These  two  qualities  of  the  German 
character  became  blended  under  the  sanctifying  in- 
fluence of  Christianity,  and  the  whole  framed  itself 
into  a  system  of  opinions  of  the  most  beneficial 
kind,  tempering  the  horrid  madness  of  war,  man 
meeting  to  kill  man,  and  j^resenting  a  most  beauti- 
ful glow  of  worth,  very  different  from  what  war  was 
in  old  times,  where  indeed  there  were  always  cer- 
tain laws  of  war  (as  what  can  be  done  without  some 
law  or  other  at  any  time),  but  there  was  none  of  that 
mercy,  that  noble  self-denial,  that  fidelity  to  a  man, 
and  to  the  cause  of  that  man,  which  we  see  in  the 
Middle  Ages  ! 

In  the  next  place,  I  may  observe  that  probably 
the  Spanish  nation  was  the  most  fitted  for  this  mat- 
ter, as  it  actually  appears  to  have  carried  this  mat- 
ter forward  to  a  higher  perfection  than  it  attained 
anywhere  else.  The  Spanish  nation  had  made  its 
appearance  in  European  history  more  than  two  cen- 
turies before  Christ,  in  the  wars  of  the  Carthagin- 
ians and  Romans.  They  were  remarkable  for  their 
tenacious  valor.  The  Celt-iberian  nation,  the  ori- 
gin of  the  rest  of  Spain,  had  always  that  character, 
and  to  this  day  they  maintain  it  in  Spain  by  the 
name  of  Basques,  and  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Pyrenees  by  that  of  Gascons.  In  the  barbarian  in- 
vasions they  at  first  became  mixed  with  the  Goths, 
and  afterward  with  the  Vandals,  from  whom  they 
received  their  slight  admixture  of  Northern  blood  ; 


110  THE   CID 

and  then  with  the  Arabs.  In  modern  times  tiiey 
maintained  the  nobleness  which  distinguished  them 
in  ancient  times,  and  have  often  displaj^ed  a  spirit 
equal  to  that  they  exhibited  in  the  sieges  of  Saguu- 
tium  and  Numantia,  which  lasted  fourteen  years, 
and  the  scenes  of  which  are  much  analogous  to  the 
siege  of  Saragossa  in  our  times  :  a  striking  instance 
which  shows  the  character  of  nations  to  be  wonder- 
fully tenacious.  The  Spaniards  had  less  breadth  of 
genius  than  the  Italians,  but  they  had,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  lofty  sustained  enthusiasm  in  a  higher  de- 
gree than  the  Italians,  with  a  tinge  of  what  we  call 
romance,  a  dash  of  Oriental  exaggeration,  and  a 
tenacious  vigor  in  prosecuting  their  objects.  Of 
less  depth  than  the  Germans,  of  less  of  that  com- 
posed silent  force,  yet  a  great  people,  and  of  much 
knowledge,  and  at  all  times  calculated  to  be  distin- 
guished ;  and  it  was  this  people  that  developed  the 
thing  we  call  chivalry  :  that  system  of  noble  deeds 
in  war,  and  noble  feelings.  These  sieges  of  Sagun- 
tium  and  Numantia,  and  the  man  Viriatus,  a  Span- 
ish or  Portuguese  shepherd,  who  withstood  the 
whole  force  of  the  Romans  for  fourteen  years — 
that  same  sj^irit  which  was  in  them  showed  itself 
early  in  modern  Europe,  in  the  Cid,  for  example — 
whose  memory  is  still  musical  among  the  people.  I 
am  told  that  to  this  day  they  sing  ballads  about 
him.  A  book  has  been  written  about  his  history  by 
Johannes  von  M tiller,  who  really  sees  good  reason  to 


THE   MOORS  111 

give  credit  to  the  popular  ballads  about  his  advent- 
ures. You  all  know  tlie  famous  version  of  it  by 
Corneille.  His  real  name  was  Ruy  Diaz.  He  was 
the  contemporary  of  William  the  Conqueror  ;  from 
the  first  a  hard  destiny  was  laid  out  for  him.  He 
had  been  betrothed  to  Lady  Chimene,  but  their 
fathers  disagreeing,  the  match  was  broken  off;  a 
contest  ensued,  in  which  his  father  was  vanquished. 
For  the  purpose  of  vengeance,  he  fought  and  con- 
quered her  father,  merely  from  a  sentiment  of  filial 
duty,  not  from  interest  ;  all  personal  wishes  were 
set  at  nought,  and  as  to  thoughts  of  personal  ad- 
vantage, it  was  altogether  the  reverse.  So  when 
the  King  had  employed  him  successfully  against  the 
Moors,  he  afterward  rejected  him  altogether  from 
his  Court.  He  fought  often  against  the  Moors.  (I 
may  here  mention  that  Cid  is  a  Moorish  name,  and 
signifies  master.)  No  doubt  those  contests  against 
the  Arabs  tended  very  much  to  keep  alive  that  spmt 
of  chivalry.  This  people  first  landed  in  Spain  in  the 
eighth  century,  and  very  soon  overran  it,  and  even 
penetrated  into  France  as  far  as  Poitou,  where  they 
were  met  by  Charles  Martel,  and  driven  back  upon 
Spain.  We  may  say  that  they  made  themselves  mas- 
ters of  all  Spain.  The  Christian  people  took  refuge 
in  the  mountains,  and,  issuing  from  thence,  gradual- 
ly reconquered  the  country  ;  but  that  contest  last- 
ed 800  years.  Notwithstanding  their  hostility,  we 
must  confess  the  Moors  did  great  things  for  Spain. 


112  MAHOMET 

They  invented  the  decimal  system  of  notation,  the 
greatest  boon  the  world  perhaps  ever  got  in  that  de- 
partment ;  also  they  gave  us  the  words  azimuth, 
nadir,  zenith — in  all  sciences  they  effected  great  re- 
sults. They  were  the  first  who  translated  the  Greek 
books  ;  and,  in  short,  were  the  instructors  of  Europe 
in  many  respects.  But  in  particular,  we  are  to  re- 
mark of  them  that  they  serve  especially  to  illustrate 
what  was  said  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  effect  of 
belief  at  that  time. 

The  nation,  ever  since  the  time  of  their  probable 
founders  (Hagar  and  Ishmael),  had  been  a  nation  of 
great  energj^,  but  living  alone  in  their  deserts,  and 
entirely  obscure  in  that  way  of  life,  until  Mahomet, 
the  Prophet  of  Arabia,  appeared.  This  was  in  the 
seventh  century.  I  must  say  that  I  regard  this  man 
as  no  impostor  at  all,  and  I  am  glad  to  think  so  for 
the  honor  of  our  human  nature,  but,  as  an  enthusi- 
astic man,  who  had  by  the  powers  of  his  own  mind 
gained  a  flash  of  the  truth,  living  a  quiet  simple 
life  till  the  age  of  forty,  then  striking  out  into  a  new 
path  altogether,  deeply  imj^ressed  with  the  heinous- 
ness  of  Arabian  idolatry,  and  full  of  the  great  truth, 
that  God  was  one  ;  in  other  respects  a  poor  inferior 
mortal,  full  of  sensuality,  corruption,  and  ignorance, 
as  he  showed  by  the  rewards  he  promised  the  Arabs 
when  he  spoke  out  his  system  to  them.  He  got 
them,  but  with  much  difficulty,  to  believe  that,  and 
then   within  a  century  afterward  they  had  spread 


CERVANTES  113 

themselves,  like  guDpowder  ignited  by  a  spark, 
across  the  Indies  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other 
np  as  far  as  Poitou  !  They  made,  besides,  great 
proficiency  in  the  arts,  poetr}^,  science,  and  were 
greatly  superior  in  all  these  respects  to  any  Euro- 
pean nation  of  the  time. 

In  Cervantes  we  see  almost  the  first  record  of 
Spanish  literature.  Viriatus,  the  Cid,  and  the  like 
men  lived  silent  ;  their  works  spoke  for  them,  and 
it  is  singular  that  a  poor  obscure  man  should  be  the 
only  voice  which  has  reached  us  through  so  many 
ages  of  Spanish  history,  without  which,  too,  we 
should  never  have  so  accurately  known  what  was 
the  tone  of  the  Spanish  soul.  His  life  was  not  that 
of  a  scholar  at  all,  but  of  a  broken,  active,  bard  man 
of  action.  He  was  of  a  decayed  family  of  gentry  of 
Ascalon,  near  Madrid  ;  his  birth  took  place  in  1547. 
Being  placed  at  school,  he  soon  distinguished  him- 
self, insomuch  that  he  was  able  to  obtain  an  em- 
ployment under  the  Cardinal  Aquaviva,  who  was 
then  going  to  Eome  ;  but  the  great  league  being 
about  that  time  formed  between  Rome,  Spain,  and 
Venice  against  the  Turks,  he  resigned  his  post,  and 
became  a  soldier,  as  did  many  young  men  and 
noblemen  then,  volunteering  to  serve  in  the  fleet 
under  Colonna  and  Don  John  of  Austria.  The  bat- 
tle of  Lepanto  was  the  beginning  of  his  hard  expe- 
rience ;  there  his  left  arm  was  cut  off  by  a  Turkish 
scimitar.  Returning  home  to  Spain,  though  he  had 
8 


114  CAPTIVITY   IN  BAKBARY 

not  quitted  the  army  not^vitbstandmg  Lis  wound, 
he  was  taken  captive  by  a  Barbary  corsair,  carried 
to  Algiers,  and  there  compelled  to  dig  the  ground 
in  the  service  of  the  rude  and  cruel  corsair,  his 
master.  Seven  years  he  spent  in  slavery  and  the 
most  grievous  suffering  ;  but  his  cheerful  and  noble 
heart  kept  him  up.  He  spent  the  whole  of  this 
time  in  devising  means  to  get  out  of  the  place. 

In  Don  Quixote  he  has  given  us  the  story  of  a 
captive's  adventures,  distinctly  resembling  his  own. 
Besides  this,  in  a  book  upon  Barbary,  written  by  a 
Spanish  priest  in  the  same  century,  the  author, 
Father  Haydo,  gives  an  account  of  Cervantes'  cap- 
tivity and  adventures,  of  his  plans  of  escape  ;  that 
he  and  others  hved  in  a  cavern  for  six  months,  hop- 
ing to  get  away  ;  that  he  escaped  death  many  times, 
and  in  particular  on  the  occasion  of  his  escape  into 
the  cavern,  where  he  was  detected  ;  that  he  was 
there  very  nearly  killed,  and  would  have  been  had 
not  the  Dey  of  Algiers  consented  to  let  him  ransom 
himself  for  500  crowns  if  he  were  able.  His  mother 
and  sister  and  others  then  began  to  contribute  tow- 
ard this  amount,  as  it  was  too  much  for  one  of  them 
to  bear ;  and  it  is  very  touching  to  see  how  one 
would  give  fifty  crowns,  and  another  perhaps  not  so 
much,  and  so  on.  But  the  Society  of  Mercy  was 
then  active  in  ransoming  Christian  slaves,  and, 
among  others,  they  were  induced  to  ransom  Cer- 
vantes.    He  was  then  in  his  thirty-fourth  year.     He 


KANSOMED   BUT   POOR  115 

married  shortly  after  ;  but  he  made  at  that  time  no 
progress  in  literature.  He  was  taken  up  by  some 
of  his  kindred  about  Seville,  who  were  merchants 
there,  and  in  their  employment  he  occupied  himself 
by  travelling  up  and  down  SjDain,  which,  by  these 
means,  he  came  to  know  accurately,  and  could  not 
have  known  so  well  in  any  other  way. 

He  finally  came  to  Valladolid  to  settle,  but  it  is 
not  known  why  he  did  so.  There  is  yet  a  curious 
document  in  the  archives  of  Valladolid,  which  shows 
his  humble  condition  and  the  small  estimation  in 
which  he  was  then  held.  A  man,  it  appears  from 
this  record,  was  one  night  murdered  in  front  of 
Cervantes'  house.  Cervantes  ran  out  to  give  assist- 
ance upon  hearing  the  cry,  but,  being  found  with 
the  corpse,  he  was  taken  up  b}'  the  police,  and  car- 
ried away  from  his  family  before  the  magistrates. 
His  house  was  so  mean,  where  he  and  his  family 
lived  on  the  fourth  floor,  and  their  appearance  was 
so  haggard  and  squalid,  that  he  was  suspected  of 
being  one  of  the  worst  characters  in  the  place.  Of 
course  he  was  cleared  of  this  charge  ;  but  it  is  a 
striking  record  of  the  state  of  misery  to  which  he 
was  then  reduced.  Yet  he  was  always,  in  spite  of 
all  this,  as  cheerful  as  any  man  could  be  ;  and  the 
best  proof  of  this  is  that  that  very  year,  some  say 
before  that,  he  produced  the  first  part  of  Don  Quix- 
ote, being  then  in  his  fifty-fourth  year,  already  in 
old  age.     The  last  part  appeared  ten  years  after 


116  DON   QUIXOTE 

that,  in  the  year  before  he  died.  It  has  been  often 
remarked  that  he  died  on  the  same  day  that  Shake- 
speare died.  Some  grandees  and  others  gave  him 
in  his  latter  years  some  slight  help,  the  Duke  of 
Lemos,  for  example,  for  which  he  was  abundantly 
grateful  to  them  ;  but  he  was  never  lifted  at  any 
time  above  the  state  of  poverty  and  dependence, 
and  was  always,  as  he  said  himself,  the  "  poorest  of 
Spanish  poets."  Three  or  four  days,  or  perhaps 
two  weeks,  before  his  death,  he  writes  to  his  patron, 
the  Duke  of  Lemos,  expressing  warmly  his  grati- 
tude for  his  favors  to  him,  and  taking  leave  of  him, 
as  he  says,  with  his  "  foot  in  the  stirrup."  His  had 
been  a  hard  condition,  full  of  privations  and  evils, 
necessity  and  difficulty.  In  none  of  his  literary 
things  he  seems  to  prosper  but  Don  Quixote,  which, 
indeed,  is  a  most  admirable  Avork  ;  and  it  really 
seems  as  if  Fortune,  in  return  for  her  man}^  unkind- 
nesses,  had  given  him  this  high  gift — the  power  of 
speaking  out  the  spirit  that  was  in  him  in  a  way 
that  should  rank  him  among  the  great  voices  of  the 
world. 

Don  Quixote  is  the  very  reverse  of  the  Commedia 
of  Dante  ;  but  in  one  respect  it  is  analogous  to  it. 
Like  it,  it  is  the  free  utterance  of  the  heart  of  man 
and  nature.  At  the  outset  Cervantes  seems  to  have 
contemplated  not  much  more  than  a  satire  on 
chivalry — a  burlesque.  But,  as  he  proceeds,  the 
spirit  soon  grows  on  him.     One  may  say  that  in  his 


MEANING   OF   DON   QUIXOTE  117 

Don  Quixote  he  portrays  his  own  character,  repre- 
senting himself  with  good-natured  irony,  mistaking 
the  illusions  of  his  own  heart  for  realities  ;  but  he 
proceeds  ever  more  and  more  harmoniously.  The 
first  time  where  he  appears  to  have  gone  deeply  into 
his  subject  is  the  scene  with  the  goatherds,  where 
Don  Quixote  breaks  out  into  an  eulogy  on  the 
Golden  Age,  full  of  the  finest  poetry,  although 
strangely  introduced  in  the  middle  of  the  mockery 
which  appears  before.  Throughout  the  delineation 
of  the  Don's  character  and  the  incidents  of  the 
story,  there  is  the  vesture  of  mockery,  parody,  with 
a  seam  of  poetry  shining  through  all  ;  and  above 
all  we  see  the  good  -  humored  cheerfulness  of  the 
author,  in  the  middle  of  his  unfortunate  destiny  ; 
never  provoked  with  it,  no  atrabiliar  quality  ever 
obtained  any  mastery  in  his  mind !  It  was  written 
in  satire  of  the  romances  of  chivalry  ;  but  it  is  the 
only  record  we  have  of  many  of  them,  and  it  is 
questionable  whether  any  of  those  romances  would 
have  lasted  till  now  if  not  noticed  there.  We  have 
no  time  at  all  to  dwell  upon  its  merits.  There  is 
one  thing,  however,  we  should  remark — that  all  the 
world  seems  to  have  a  taste  for  the  worth  of  it,  and 
it  is  of  all  books  the  most  universally  read  except 
the  Bible. 

Independently  of  chivalry,  it  is  valuable,  too,  as  a 
sort  of  sketch  of  the  perpetual  struggle  in  the  hu- 
man soul.     We  have  the  hard  facts  of  this  world's 


118  THE   POETRY   OF   COMEDY 

existence,  and  the  ideal  scheme  struggling  with 
these  in  a  high  enthusiastic  manner  delineated 
there  ;  and  for  this  there  is  no  more  wholesome 
vehicle  anywhere  than  irony,  the  best  way  in  which 
these  ideas  can  live.  If  he  had  given  us  only  a 
high-flown  panegyric  of  the  Age  of  Gold  he  would 
have  found  no  ear  for  him,  it  is  the  self-mockery  in 
which  he  envelopes  it  which  reconciles  us  to  the 
high  bursts  of  enthusiasm,  and  which  will  keep  the 
matter  alive  in  the  heart  as  long  as  there  are  men  to 
read  it !     It  is  the  poetry  of  comedy  ! 

As  a  finish  to  all  his  noble  qualities  he  possessed, 
in  an  eminent  degree,  the  thing  critics  call  humor, 
different  from  wit,  mere  laughter,  which  indeed 
seems  to  be  much  the  same  thing  at  first,  though,  in 
fact,  widely  different,  and  it  has  been  said  with  much 
plausibility  that  the  best  test  is,  whether  the  writer 
in  laughing  at  the  objects  of  his  wit,  contemplates 
to  produce  an  effect  of  any  kind  by  it,  or  whether 
he  is  merely  covering  them  with  sport  without  being 
contemplative  of  any  such  end  ;  so  that  if  anyone 
wishes  to  know  the  difference  between  humor  and 
wit,  the  laughter  of  the  fool,  which  the  wise  man,  by 
a  similitude  founded  on  deep  earnestness,  called  the 
crackling  of  thorns  under  a  pot,  let  him  read  Cer- 
vantes on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other,  Voltaire, 
the  greatest  laugher  the  world  ever  knew. 

There  remain  two  other  characters  which  (taking 
leave  with  great  regret  of  Cervantes)  I  must  now 


CALDERON  119 

notice.  One  of  these  is  Lope  de  Vega,  and  the 
other  Calderon.  Both  contain  a  certain  representa- 
tion of  the  spirit  of  their  age,  although  they  do  not 
come  into  actual  contact  with  it.  Of  Calderon  I 
have  not  read  much,  in  fact,  only  one  play  and 
some  choice  specimens  collected  in  German  books, 
for  his  works  are  in  great  favor  with  the  Germans, 
as  much  as  the  old  dramas,  Greek  and  others. 
They  are  extremely  fond  of  Calderon,  but  I  suspect 
that  there  is  very  much  of  forced  taste  in  this  ;  he 
did  not  strike  me  much,  except  for  the  wild,  vague 
shape  he  gave  to  his  characters.  There  is  in 
general  much  of  the  mystic  and  vague  in  Calderon. 
No  doubt  he  was  a  man  of  great  earnestness  of 
mind,  and  deep  genius,  and  he  was  in  his  day  more 
popular  by  far  than  Cervantes,  also  it  is  clear  that 
his  are  the  best  Spanish  plays.  Of  Lope  de  Vega  I 
can  say  almost  nothing,  except  that  he  too  has 
obtained  an  historical  name  among  us.  A  man  of 
the  strangest  literary  fortune !  No  man  was  ever 
so  popular  in  his  day  as  he  was,  courted  by  all,  and 
even  complimented  in  a  letter  by  the  Pope  himself, 
insomuch  that  his  name  became  proverbial  for  good 
fortune,  or  excellence,  and  it  was  the  custom  to  call 
a  fine  day  or  fine  woman,  a  Lope  day  !  a  Lope 
woman  !  He  certainly  was  a  man  of  a  strange 
facility,  but  of  much  shallowness  too,  and  greatly 
inferior  to  Calderon ;  not  that  he  was  without 
genius,  which  if  properly  concentrated  must  have 


120  LOPE   DE   VEGA 

become  productive  of  large  results,  but  it  was  ill 
directed.  He  wrote  one  of  his  plaj^s,  he  tells  us,  in 
twenty-four  hours,  and  I  believe  he  wrote  above  a 
hundred  at  the  same  rapid  rate,  so  that  he  suffered 
his  genius  to  be  dissipated  away  in  sound  and  vague 
splendor,  and  he  has  passed  altogether  out  of  our 
remembrance.  He  was  certainly  very  successful  in 
obtaining  wages,  yet  he  complains  very  much  of 
them  in  a  letter  to  his  son,  who  had  a  great  wish  to 
learn  literature,  wherein  he  counselled  him  most 
earnestly  not  to  think  of  such  a  thing,  that  the  life 
of  a  literary  man  is  full  of  bitterness  and  of  poverty  ! 
This  last  was  a  singular  complaint  to  come  from 
him,  as  he  certainly  realized  an  immense  sum  of 
money  by  the  profits  of  his  works,  and  the  presents 
that  were  made  him.  Still,  he  was  a  true  poet  in 
his  way. 

In  the  history  of  Spanish  literature  there  are  only 
tliese  three,  Cervantes,  Calderon,  and  Lope,  and 
Cervantes  is  far  above  the  other  two ;  and  it  is  a 
curious  reflection  to  make,  that  in  so  noble  a  nation, 
whose  whole  history  is  full  of  valiant  actions  and 
occurrences  of  every  description,  possessing  so 
much  cheerfuhiess,  humanity,  and  quaint  generos- 
ity, no  writer  for  so  many  hundred  years  should 
have  been  produced  who  could  speak  the  sj^irit  of 
the  nation,  only  Cervantes,  an  unknown,  obscure  in- 
dividual, maimed,  for  he  had  lost  an  arm,  and 
miserably  poor.     It  is  universally  true  that  we  can- 


SPANISH   ENTERPRISE  121 

not  tell  the  meaning  that  is  in  men  and  things  till  a 
long  time  after  their  day.  The  Spanish  nation  was 
the  most  distinguished  nation  in  the  whole  world. 
America  was  conquered  by  very  great  men  of  that 
nation ;  Cortes — Alexander  the  Great  was  not 
greater  than  Cortes!  Pizarro,  Balboa  Nunez,  the 
discoverer  of  the  Pacific,  of  whom  it  is  said  that 
when  he  first  beheld  it  he  rushed  into  it  till  the 
waves  reached  his  middle  flourishing  his  sword,  and 
took  possession  of  the  whole  in  the  name  of  Spain 
with  true  chivalrous  feeling  ;  and,  again,  we  see  him 
patching  up  the  roof  of  his  hut  with  leaves,  dressed 
in  an  old  canvas  jacket.  They  were  the  most  en- 
terprising people  the  world  has  seen  yet.  England 
and  America,  full  as  they  are  of  the  spirit  of  enter- 
prise, do  not  carry  us  farther,  and  therefore  I  say 
that  it  is  a  strange  and  almost  awful  thing  to  con- 
sider how  completely  that  nation  has  now  jDassed 
away,  sunk  down  into  an  insignificant  and  altogether 
mean  nation.  Many  accounts  have  been  attempted 
to  be  given  for  this,  but  even  now  one  does  not  at 
all  see  why  it  should  have  so  happened  ;  we  can 
only  say  just  this,  that  its  time  was  come,  but  the 
law  which  bound  it  cannot  be  understood  at  all ! 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  Spain  broke  itself  to 
pieces  in  that  conflict  of  Catholicism  and  chivalry 
with  the  Reformation,  commonly  called  the  Dutch 
War.  It  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  heroic 
pieces  of  history  to  see  a  poor  people,  mere  fisher- 


12^  THE   DUTCH   WAR 

men  and  slieplierds,  wishing  to  live  quietly  within 
their  own  dykes,  and  not  to  trouble  the  world  at  all, 
but  who,  happening  to  be  among  the  first  to  receive 
a  new  doctrine,  a  new  truth  then  preached  in  the 
world,  could  not  get  it  maintained  at  all ;  but  the 
Inquisition  burned  and  branded  them  for  it,  and 
they  were  at  last  obliged  to  revolt  in  consequence 
against  the  then  King  of  Sj^ain,  Philij)  II.,  and  re- 
sisted him  successfully  during  a  thirty  years'  war. 
The  result  was  what  it  always  will  be  in  such  a 
struggle,  the  triumph  of  the  right  cause,  of  truth 
and  justice  over  a  system  of  downright  falsehood 
and  abomination.  The  siege  of  Lej^den  is  a  memor- 
able event,  it  was  surrounded  by  Spaniards  on  all 
sides,  and  reduced  to  the  last  straits  by  famine  ; 
but  it  was  not  yielded,  the  defenders  declared  that 
they  were  ready,  if  necessary,  to  eat  their  left  arms, 
and  fight  on  with  the  right.  One  day  the  poor 
people  of  the  town  met  the  Governor  in  his  rounds, 
and  told  him  that  they  must  surrender,  or  they 
would  die  of  hunger,  but  he  told  them  not  to  sjDeak 
of  such  a  thing,  to  eat  him  if  they  chose,  but  not  to 
surrender.  In  the  end  they  succeeded,  as  we  know, 
in  cutting  the  dykes  at  Flushing,  and  letting  out 
the  water  into  the  Spanish  camp,  which  they  at- 
tacked in  the  confusion,  and  thus  delivered  the  city. 
Their  resolution  was  inveterate  :  they  wore,  many 
of  them,  crescents  in  their  caps,  to  show  that  they 
would  be  Turks  rather  than  Papists. 


DURATION   OF    THE   STRUGGLE  123 

This  struggle  lasted  for  thirty  years,  and  first 
made  the  nation  remarkable  in  the  world ;  the  whole 
of  it  does  great  credit  to  the  German  people,  to 
whom  they  belong. 

This  leads  us  naturally  to  the  subject  of  our 
next  lecture,  "  The  German  People  and  the  Refor- 
mation." 


LECTURE    VII. 

May   21st 

SECOND   Vl^mOJ)— Continued 

The   Germans— What    They   Have     Done— Reforma- 
tion—Luther— Ulrich  VON  Hutten— Erasmus. 

In  our  last  lecture  we  had  a  glimpse  of  the  Dutch 
War,  the  war  between  the  Spanish  and  Dutch 
nations,  and  we  observed  the  approach  of  a  new 
life,  the  Reformation,  and  the  Sj^anish  Power 
wrecking  itself  against  the  Power  it  sought  to 
molest,  but  which,  instead,  almost  annihilated  it. 
We  are  naturally  led  to  look  a  little  farther  back 
into  the  causes  of  this  new  order  of  things,  and  to 
notice  a  new  people  more  interesting  to  us,  their 
descendants,  than  any  we  have  yet  noticed,  namely, 
the  Germans. 

The  German  people  has  been  mentioned  in 
authentic  records  for  the  last  2,100  years.  The 
earliest  notice  we  have  of  the  Teutonic  race  is  giv- 
en in  Luden's  History  of  Germany,  in  a  passage 
recovered  from  Pytheas,  an  obscure  author  men- 
tioned by  Strabo.     This  work  of  Pytheas,  a  sort  of 


THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE  125 

joiu'nal  of  a  Marseilles  merchant,  in  which  he  has 
noted  down  such  observations  as  occurred  to  him 
in  his  commercial  journeyings,  mentions  a  people 
called  Germans  as  a  "  white-complexioned  quiet 
people,  living  at  the  mouth  of  the  Elbe."  AVhat 
the  Germans  were  before  that,  or  what  they  had 
been  doing  from  immemorial  time,  can  never  be 
known,  but  it  is  clear  that  they  were  a  race  of  men 
designed  for  great  things  ;  perhaps  even  the  highest 
of  their  destiny  is  not  as  yet  attained.  They  be- 
came gradually  known  as  they  came  into  contact 
with  the  Eg  mans  ;  as  the  contact  more  and  more 
increased,  collision  more  and  more  increased,  till  at 
last  the  Empire  itself  was  absorbed  by  them,  and  the 
dark  anticipation  of  Tacitus  realized  :  that  one  day 
Kome  would  be  destroyed  by  these  barbarians  !  In 
Tacitus'  history,  the  old  scanty  records  of  German 
life  are  very  interesting.  Their  character  was  cer- 
tainly uncivilized,  but  not  at  all  savage;  it  had  a 
deep  earnestness  in  it,  and  was  that  of  a  meditative 
people.  The  Scandinavian  mythology  is  still  a 
curious  document,  illustrative  of  many  features  of 
the  German  character.  The  account  given  of  their 
form  of  worship  by  Tacitus  evinces  a  very  superior 
species  of  Paganism,  indicative  of  a  deep  nature. 
They  worshipped  the  earth — Tliorih  or  Tenth — from 
whom  they  themselves  claimed  to  be  descended. 
The  thought  of  the  people  was  forming  its  deep 
words  long  before  they  came  out  into  speech.     Their 


126  THE   BERSEEKEE 

wliole  mythology,  that  dark  vast  sohtnde,  the  home 
of  darkness,  the  home  of  light,  the  great  hall  of 
Odin,  and  other  such,  belong  to  a  people  having 
deep  thoughts  lying  in  it. 

The  story  of  the  Berserker,  which  has  attracted 
the  attention  of  antiquaries  during  the  last  fifty 
years,  is  the  personification  of  what  lay  deep  in  the 
German  mind,  the  wild  mind  of  Germany.  The 
Berserker  was  one  who  despised  danger  and  fear, 
rushed  forth  fiercely  to  battle,  and,  though  without 
armor,  trod  down  hosts  of  foes  like  shells  under  his 
feet.  Hence  his  name,  Berserker,  "bare  spirit." 
This  character  is  analogous  to  much  that  we  find 
in  the  Germans.  Not,  certainly,  a  true  sample  of 
their  feeling  is  that  constant  state  of  explosive  fury 
which  marks  the  Berserker  ;  yet  it  illustrates  their 
fundamental  character,  the  strange  fierceness  called 
afterward  by  Italians  the  ''furore  Tedesco"  the  most 
dreadful  of  any.  Yet  rage  of  that  sort,  defying  all 
dangers  and  obstacles,  if  kept  down  sufficiently,  is 
as  a  central  fire,  which  will  make  all  things  to  grow 
on  the  surface  above  it.  Fighting  is  the  only  way 
it  displays  itself  in  the  Berserker,  but  in  the  Ger- 
mans at  large  it  appears  in  many  other  ways.  Well 
if  it  never  come  out  in  that  Berserker  Wuth,  as  it  is 
called.  On  the  whole,  it  is  the  best  character  that 
can  belong  to  any  nation,  producing  strength  of  all 
sorts,  and  all  the  concomitants  of  strength,  perse- 
verance, steadiness.     It  is  not  easily  excited,  but 


JUSTICE    OF  THE   GERMAN   PEOPLE      127 

when  called  up,  it  will  have  its  object  accomplished. 
We  find  it  in  all  their  history. 

Justice :  that  is  another  of  its  concomitants. 
Strength,  one  may  say,  is  justice  itself.  The  strong 
man  is  he  that  can  be  just  ;  that  sets  everything 
in  its  own  rightful  place,  one  above  the  other.  It  is 
the  only  way  to  do  anything  great  and  strong  ;  and 
it  is  always  the  boast,  and  a  legitimate  one,  of  this 
peo^^le  that  they  are  a  just  people,  framing  all  their 
institutions  for  ends  of  justice. 

Trial  by  jury  is  essentially  German.  Tacitus 
mentions  the  existence  of  an  institution  precisely 
analogous  to  it  ;  and  to  this  da}',  in  one  part  of 
Switzerland,  there  is  an  old  usage  of  very  remote 
tradition,  called  the  "street  court,"  itself  quite  a  rude 
jury,  by  which  tradition,  if  two  men  meet  upon  the 
high  road,  men  travelling  on  business— say  carriers, 
drovers — and  one  of  them  do  some  injury  to  the 
other,  and  they  cannot  agree  about  it,  they  are  bound 
to  wait  there  till  seven  other  persons  shall  have 
come  up,  and  these  shall  judge  of  the  dispute  (hence 
the  name  ''street  court,"  "road  court,"  "strasse 
gericht  ")  ;  and  they  are  to  decide  it  irrevocably.  I 
say  that  all  the  rudiments  of  our  trial  by  jury  exist 
there  in  that  canton  of  Switzerland.  These  few  de- 
tails sufficiently  indicate  to  us  what  the  German 
character  is,  and  I  shall  leave  you  to  expand  what  I 
have  said  in  your  own  minds  over  other  traits  quite 
as  characteristic. 


128  SWITZERLAND 

Before  the  Reformation  even,  the  Germans  had 
ah-eady  appeared  more  than  once  in  modern  history. 
First,  when  Europe  itself  was  completely  destroyed 
by  them  ;  when,  after  more  than  two  centuries  of 
confused  fighting,  they  at  last  made  peace  among 
themselves  and  joined  against  Rome,  till  Europe 
was  altogether  abolished,  and  made  anew.  This 
first  i)eriod,  however,  was  little  but  a  confused  de- 
lineation of  all  the  influences  of  that  time  at  work  in 
Europe  iill  the  time  of  Charlemagne.  He  was  also 
a  German,  and  got  all  Germany  united  under  him. 
The  modern  system  of  division  into  kingdoms  and 
principalities  came  from  him. 

Their  next  appearance  in  the  worlds  history  was 
at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  and  beginning  of  the 
fourteenth  centuries  in  Switzerland,  for  the  Swiss 
are,  in  fact,  Germans.  Tins  was  the  age  of  Dante. 
They  were  the  first  in  modern  Europe  who  attempt- 
ed to  establish  a  regular  government  of  liberty  or 
freedom.  The  history  of  William  Tell,  a  beautiful 
mythos,  is  grounded  on  indisputable  facts.  Most 
probably  the  story  of  the  apple  is  not  true  ;  indeed, 
it  is  altogether  improbable,  as  it  has  been  told  of 
others  besides  Tell ;  nor  that  of  Gessler's  hat  either, 
according  to  Johannes  von  Miiller.  But,  what  is 
certain,  is  that  after  enduring  with  extreme  patience 
their  wrongs  for  some  space  of  time,  they  did  con- 
trive to  hurl  out  the  Austrian  dominion,  and  to  estab- 
lish in  its  place  a  regular  government. 


SWISS  AND   CHARLES  THE  BOLD         129 

This  is  a  thing  which  reflects  great  credit  on  the 
whole  nation  of  Germans,  and  leads  men  to  admire 
them  more  and  more  as  they  consider  it.  One  does 
not  know  any  instance  where  the  people,  during  a 
contest  so  long  and  obstinate,  have  comported  them- 
selves so  well  throughout ;  enduring  their  grievances 
at  first,  and  even  sluggishly  patient  under  them  ; 
but,  finally,  these  remaining  unredressed,  rising  into 
a  lion-like  rage  with  all  the  spirit  of  the  Berserker 
against  their  tyrants. 

Charles  the  Bold,  Duke  of  Burgundy,  was  the  last 
to  feel  their  brave  resolution.  He  wanted  a  kingdom, 
and  for  this  sole  reason  contrived  to  quarrel  with 
them,  as  he  imagined  it  was  quite  easy,  with  his 
knights  and  men-at-arms,  to  overcome  these  peasants, 
who  fought  on  foot.  He,  therefore,  made  a  quarrel 
with  them,  but  was  altogether  defeated  in  three  great 
battles,  Granson,  Morat,  and  Nancy,  at  which  last 
place  he  wrecked  himself  against  the  Swiss.  In  the 
first  battle,  we  are  told,  they  knelt  down  when  they 
saw  Charles'  immense  army  coming,  as  it  were,  to 
swallow  them  up,  and  prayed  that  God  would  that 
day  assist  them  to  fight  against  their  enemies.  Co- 
mines  says  that  Charles,  seeing  this,  cried  :  "  See ! 
they  yield."  But  others,  who  knew  them  better, 
observed  that  "  they  did  not  much  like  that  species 
of  yielding  altogether."  And  accordingly  they  soon 
found  out  that  there  was  not  much  in  it  to  like  at 
all.     The  Swiss  rose  like  a  whirlwind  on  their  ene- 


130  THE   REFORMATION 

mies,  overwhelmed  them,  and  maintained  their  own 
rights  ! 

But  the  third  remarkable  appearance  of  the  Ger- 
mans was  at  the  Reformation,  and  greater  than  all. 
This  was  in  the  sixteenth  century.  I  have  repeat- 
edly alluded  to  the  necessity  of  change  in  matters 
of  doctrine,  the  impossibility  of  any  creed  being- 
perpetual,  any  theory  which  man's  small  mind  may 
form  of  this  great  universe  being  complete,  though 
he  should  study  to  all  eternity  the  immensity  of 
which  he  is  a  fraction.  Any  opinion  he  may  form 
will  only  serve  him  for  a  time,  it  expands  itself 
daily,  for  progression  is  the  law  of  every  man  :  if 
he  be  a  fool  even,  still,  he  must  have  some  power  of 
progi'ess ;  it  is  inevitable,  and  his  creed  will  conse- 
quently go  on  expanding  by  degrees  till  it  gets  to  its 
extreme  limits,  or,  if  not,  till  he  discovers  some  ideas 
which  are  inconsistent  with  it,  and  will  produce  un- 
easiness in  the  mind,  to  go  on  increasing  generation 
after  generation  till  it  comes  at  last  to  spoken  pro- 
test. Another  cause  of  the  ruin  of  a  creed  consists 
in  the  fact  that  when  the  mind  begins  to  be  dubious 
it  will  rush  with  double  rapidity  toward  destruc- 
tion, for  all  serious  men  hate  dubiety  ;  these  view 
the  creed  indeed,  but  if  not  satisfied  with  it  have 
done  with  it  forever.  They  may  decline  meddling 
with  it  for  a  long  time,  but  when  they  come  to  ques- 
tion it  they  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  it,  they  do 
not  want  to  have  popes  or  priests  undei'  any  such 


CORRUPTION   OF  THE   CHURCH  131 

system.  But  there  is  always  a  number  of  inferior 
men  who  aim  at  the  rewards  which  the  Church  has 
to  bestow,  and  therefore  they  willingly  adhere  to  it, 
and  the  very  circumstance  of  any  such  attaching 
themselves  to  any  given  system  is  of  itself  a  certain 
and  infallible  cause  of  ruin  to  it.  This  last  cir- 
cumstance was  precisely  the  case  with  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  at  this  time.  There  was  no  Pope 
Hildebrand  then  ready  to  sacrifice  life  itself  to  the 
end  that  he  might  make  the  Church  the  highest 
thing  in  the  world.  Anyone  who  was  inclined  to 
see  things  in  their  proper  light  then  would  have  de- 
cided that  it  was  better  to  have  nothing  to  do  with 
it,  but  crouch  down  in  an  obscure  corner  somewhere 
and  read  his  Bible,  and  get  what  good  he  can  for 
himself  in  that  way,  but  have  nothing  to  with  the 
Machiavellian  policy  of  such  a  Church.  The  popes 
of  that  age  were  such  men  as  Julius  11.,  Borgia,  and 
Leo  X.,  who  did  indeed  maintain  the  Church,  but 
as  to  faith  in  it,  they  just  believed  nothing  at  all, 
or  believed  only  that  they  got  so  many  thousand 
crowns  a  year  by  it ;  the  whole  was  one  chimera,  one 
miserable  sham.  That  change,  however,  had  been 
working  more  and  more  since  Dante's  time.  Dante 
himself  has  abundant  complaints  to  make  about 
popes,  putting  several  of  them  into  hell  and  fright- 
ful punishments  there,  and  even  earlier  than  Dante 
in  all  literary  men  we  see  a  more  and  more  growing 
censoriousness  of  priests  and  popes,  till  in  the  sis.- 


132  LUTHER 

teenth  century  it  had  become  the  fixed  idea  of  all 
intelligent  men,  followers  of  manful  and  honorable 
views,  that  priests  and  monks  were  an  indolent,  use- 
less race  who  only  set  themselves  against  w^hat  con- 
duced to  human  improvement  in  all  departments. 

In  these  circumstances  Martin  Luther  was  born. 
His  parents  were  of  the  poorest  people.  His  father 
was  a  poor  miner  of  Moerha  or  Moer,  near  Eisenach, 
in  Upper  Saxony,  where  Luther  was  born  on  No- 
vember 10,  1483.  He  was  a  man  of  the  largest 
intellect  and  learning  born  in  that  centmy,  put 
down  by  nature  as  it  seemed  for  the  lowest  sphere 
of  life,  to  beat  out  a  little  lead  ore  in  his  capacity  of 
miner,  but  it  was  not  so  appointed.  His  father, 
who  seems  to  have  been  a  remarkable  man,  con- 
trived to  send  him  to  a  school,  where  he  struggled 
on  in  his  studies  for  a  long  time.  It  ajDpears  that 
he  went  with  other  of  the  boys,  as  was  their  cus- 
tom, through  the  various  villages  in  the  intervals  of 
study,  singing  ballads^  and  getting  in  this  way  a  few 
coppers  thrown  to  him,  till  at  last  the  widow  of  a 
rich  burgher,  hearing  of  his  ability,  assisted  him 
forward,  and  got  him  placed  at  the  University, 
where  he  soon  distinguished  himself.  His  father 
wished  him  to  be  a  lawyer,  and  he  was  at  first 
studying  for  that,  but  afterward,  upon  seeing  a 
companion  struck  suddenly  dead  by  his  father's 
side,  Luther,  naturally  a  serious,  melancholy-mind- 
ed man,  was  so  struck  to  the  heart  at  seeing  before 


EAKLY    LIFE  183 

his  eyes  a  dear  friend  at  once  hurried  away  into 
Eternity  and  infinitude,  that  the  law  and  the  pro- 
motions it  offered  him  sank  into  a  poor,  miserable 
dream  in  comparison  to  the  great  reality  before 
him,  and  he  became  a  monk  that  he  might  occupy 
himself  wholly  witli  prayer  and  religion.  He  be- 
came, as  he  tells  us,  ''a  strict  and  painful  monk," 
and  this  life  continued  many  years,  nearly  ten 
years.  He  was  very  miserable  in  that  life,  imagin- 
ing himself  doomed  to  everlasting  perdition,  and  he 
could  not  see  how  prayer,  saying  of  masses,  could 
save  him  or  get  him  to  Heaven.  At  last  one  of  his 
brother  monks,  a  pious,  good  man,  told  him,  what 
was  quite  new  to  him  at  that  time,  that  the  real 
secret  of  the  thing  lay  in  repentance  and  faith  in 
Jesus  Christ.  This  was  the  first  insight  he  ever  got 
into  it,  that  it  was  not  prayer  nor  masses  at  all  that 
could  save  him,  but  falling  down  in  spirit  as  Script- 
ure says  at  the  foot  of  the  Cross  !  At  this  time, 
too,  he  found  a  Bible,  an  old  Vulgate  Bible,  in  the 
convent  library,  which  he  read,  and  in  this  way  he 
got  peace  of  mind  at  last,  but  he  seems  to  have  in- 
troduced no  project  of  reform  at  the  time. 

He  continued  to  grow  in  esteem  with  everybody. 
The  Elector  of  Saxony,  hearing  of  his  great  talents 
and  harmony,  brought  him  to  the  University  he  had 
just  founded,  and  made  him  one  of  the  professors 
there.  His  convent  afterward  sent  him  to  Rome, 
for  he  still  remained  an  Au2:ustinian  monk,  to  man- 


134  THE   SALE   OF   INDULGENCES 

age  some  affairs  of  the  convent ;  this  was  in  the  time 
of  Pope  Julius  n.  He  was  deeply  shocked  at  all 
he  saw  there,  but  was  not  in  the  least  aware  then 
of  the  work  he  was,  in  a  few  years,  to  do.  It  is  a 
true  saying  of  Schiller's  :  "  Genius  is  ever  a  secret 
to  itself  ;  the  strong  man  is  he  that  is  unconscious 
of  his  own  strength."  But  at  last  Tetzel,  the  cele- 
brated Dominican,  came  into  Saxony  to  sell  indul- 
gences. He  was  sent  by  Pope  Leo  X.,  who  wanted 
money  for  some  purpose,  some  say  to  buy  jewels 
for  a  niece,  and  he  sold  them  there  beside  Luther. 
Luther  soon  found  it  out  in  the  confessional,  as  he 
heard  frequently  from  those  who  came  to  confess, 
that  they  had  no  need  of  repentance  for  this  or  that 
sill,  since  they  had  bought  indulgences  for  them  ! 
This  set  Luther  to  preach  a  sermon  against  the  sale 
of  indulgences  at  all,  in  which  he  asserted  that  the 
Church  has  only  power  to  remit  the  penalties  itself 
imposes  on  sin,  but  not  to  pardon  sin,  and  that  no 
man  has  any  authority  to  do  that.  Tetzel  respond- 
ed to  this,  and  at  last  Luther  saw  himself  obliged 
to  look  deeper  into  the  matter,  and  to  publish  his 
ninety-five  propositions  as  to  indulgences,  denying 
the  foundation  of  the  whole  matter  altogether,  and 
challenging  Tetzel  to  prove  it  to  him  either  in  rea- 
son or  Scripture.  This  occasioned  a  great  ferment 
in  Germany,  already  in  an  unsettled  state  of  opin- 
ion, and  j)roduced  several  missions  from  the  Pope. 
Cardinal  Cajetan  tried  to  persuade  him  to  retract, 


THE    DIET   OF    AVOKMS  135 

but,  not  succeeding,  at  last  brought  him  before  the 
Diet  of  Worms.  Luther,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
going  farther  and  farther  off,  as  his  enemies  irri- 
tated him,  seeking  to  discover  what  truth  there 
might  be  in  any  of  the  Church's  doctrines ;  till 
finally,  being  excommunicated  by  the  Pope,  he  pub- 
licly bui*ned  the  excommunication  in  the  presence 
of  his  friends,  and  excited  thereby  a  deep  murmur 
of  astonished  expectancy  among  the  beholders,  but 
nothing  more  then,  though  they  could  not  help  feel- 
ing that  the  truth  must  be  with  him. 

A  few  did  stand  by  him,  however  ;  and  finally,  in 
the  year  1521,  the  year  after  that,  he  surrendered 
himself  to  the  Diet  of  Worms,  where  the  Emperor 
had  resolved  to  have  him  tried,  although  he  remem- 
bered how  Huss  had  been  betrayed  before,  and  his 
safe  conduct  violated.  It  was  in  the  eyes  of  all  a 
daring,  great,  fearful  enterprise,  but  not  fearful  to 
Luther,  whose  life  was  not  to  sink  into  a  downy 
sleep,  while  he  heard  the  great  call  of  a  far  other 
life  upon  him,  so  he  determined  to  go.  This  was 
on  the  17th  of  April,  1521.  Charles  V.,  the  Emperor, 
and  the  six  Electors  were  sitting  there,  and  there  was 
he,  a  poor  man,  son  of  a  poor  miner,  with  nothing 
but  God's  truth  for  his  support.  His  friends  met 
him  at  the  gate,  and  told  him  not  to  enter  the  city, 
as  the  danger  was  great ;  but  he  told  them  delib- 
erately "  that,  upon  the  whole,  he  would  go  in, 
though   there  were   as  many  devils   in  Worms   as 


136  1^0   RECANTATION 

house- tiles."  He  accordingly  appeared,  and  went 
through  an  examination  on  natters  of  religion, 
which  was  wound  up  by  the  question  :  "  Would  he 
recant  his  opinions  ?  " 

The  answer  was  to  be  given  on  the  morrow  ;  he 
meditated  it  all  the  night.  Next  morning,  as  he 
passed  through  the  streets,  the  people  were  all  on 
their  housetops,  calling  on  him  not  to  deny  the 
truth,  and  saying,  "Whoso  denieth  Me  before  men, 
him  will  I  deny  before  My  Father."  And  there 
Avere  other  voices  of  that  sort  which  spoke  to  his 
heart,  but  he  passed  on  without  a  word.  In  the 
Council  he  spoke  in  reply  for  two  hours,  and  was 
admired  by  everybody  for  his  modest  sincerity. 
"  As  to  the  retractation,  he  first  wished  to  have  ex- 
plained to  him  what  was  wrong  in  the  opinions." 
They  told  him  "  that  they  had  nothing  to  do  with 
scholastic  theology,  the  question  was.  Would  he  re- 
cant ?  "  To  this  he  answered  "  that  his  book  was 
divided  into  two  portions,  part  of  it  was  his  own, 
part  was  Scripture.  In  the  former  it  was  possible 
that  there  was  much  error,  which,  if  proved,  he  was 
not  only  willing,  but  eager  to  retract ;  but  as  to  the 
other  part,  he  could  not  retract  it.  It  was  neither 
safe  nor  prudent  to  do  anything  against  Conscience  ; 
let  me,"  he  said,  "  be  convicted  of  error  from  the 
Bible,  or  let  the  thing  stand  as  written.  Here  I  take 
my  stand  ;  it  is  neither  safe  nor  prudent  to  do  any- 
thing against  Conscience ;  God  be  ray  help.    Amen  ! '» 


TRANSLATION    OF   THE   BIBLE  137 

This  speech  will  be  forever  memorable;  it  was  as 
brave  a  speech  as  was  ever  uttered  by  man.  It  was 
the  beginning  of  things  not  fully  developed  even 
yet,  but  kindled  then  first  into  a  flame,  which  shall 
never  be  extinguished.  It  was  the  assertion  of  the 
right  of  consulting  one's  own  conscience,  which  every 
new  founder  of  a  civilization  must  now  take  along 
with  him,  which  has  entered  largely  into  all  the  ac- 
tivity men  have  had  since  ! 

From  this  Council  he  returned  to  the  Convent  of 
Wart^urg,  under  protection  of  the  Elector  of  Sax- 
ony, where  he  translated  the  Bible  ;  and  he  had 
twenty-five  years  of  life  after  this  Council  :  a  life  of 
wild  struggle,  busy  and  harassed.  There  is  no  other 
finer  proof  of  his  greatness  than  the  way  he  con- 
ducted himself  while  enjoying  the  confidence  of 
princes  ;  never  was  his  head  affected  by  it,  and  no 
judgment  ever  proceeded  from  him  that  was  not 
that  of  a  worthy  and  brave  man.  He  kejDt  peace 
between  the  parties  during  his  life,  and  soon  after 
his  death  the  war  broke  out,  and  the  Smalcaldic 
League  was  formed. 

At  Wart/burg,  once  famous  for  the  Minnesingers, 
he  first  translated  the  Bible  into  the  vulgar  tongue. 
This  was  the  most  notable  work  since  Ulphilas'  trans- 
lation into  Gothic,  made  in  the  fourth  century,  and 
it  remains  to  this  day  a  most  admirable  version. 

Luther's  character,  on  the  whole,  is  one  of  the 
most  characteristic  in  Germany,  of  whatsoever  is  best 


138  ERASMUS 

iu  German  minds.  He  is  the  image  o^  a  large,  sub- 
stantial, deep  man,  that  stands  upon  truth,  justice, 
fairness,  that  fears  nothing,  considers  the  right,  and 
calculates  on  nothing  else  ;  and  again,  does  not  do 
it  sxDasmodically,  but  adheres  to  it  deliberately  and 
calmly,  through  good  report  and  bad.  Accordingly, 
we  find  him  a  good-humored,  jovial,  witty  man, 
greatly  beloved  by  every  one,  and  though  his  words 
were  half  battles,  as  Jean  Paul  says,  stronger  than 
artillery,  yet  among  his  friends  he  was  one  of  the 
kindest  of  men.  The  wild  kind  of  force  that  was  in 
him  appears  in  the  physiognomy  of  the  portrait  by 
Luke  Chranak,  his  painter  and  friend,  the  rough 
plebeian  countenance,  with  all  sorts  of  noble  thoughts 
shining  out  through  it.  That  was  precisely  Luther 
as  he  appears  through  his  whole  history. 

Another  great  German  personage,  very  different 
from  Luther,  but  who  also  deserves  to  be  noticed,  is 
Erasmus,  a  Dutchman  (for,  as  we  observed,  the  Dutch 
are  in  fact  the  same  as  the  Germans,  and  Erasmus, 
at  any  rate,  wrote  German  and  spoke  it  too).  His 
business  with  respect  to  the  Keformation  was  trifling, 
compared  to  that  of  Luther.  He  was  sixteen  years 
older  than  Luther ;  born  at  Rotterdam.  He,  too, 
like  every  clear-headed  man,  was  disgusted  with  that 
dark  ignorance  of  the  monks,  and  satirized  them,  and 
at  first  admitted  the  necessity  of  some  kind  of  re- 
formation, but  that  he  should  risk  his  ease  and  com- 
fort for  it  did  not  enter  into  his  calculations  at  all ; 


WORKS    OF    ERASMUS  139 

and  though  he  supported  Luther  at  first,  he  after- 
ward quarrelled  with  him,  and  opposed  all  his  views. 
He  was  a  great  scholar.  There  was  somethiug  in- 
teresting about  his  mother's  history.  His  real  name 
had  been  Gerhardt,  but  he  took  that  of  Erasmus — 
"love  child."  His  mother's  was  a  most  tragical  life  ; 
she  had  been  separated  from  his  father  by  her  friends, 
and  he,  believing  the  rumor  of  her  death,  made 
himself  a  priest ;  on  hearing  of  which,  she  sank  into 
an  untimely  grave. 

His  mother  took  him  to  school.  Poor,  forlorn 
woman  !  she  did  not  know  then  that  he  was  to  be- 
come a  light  of  the  world !  Rudolf  Agricola  came 
to  the  school,  and  first  observing  his  abilities,  took 
him  by  the  hand  and  said,  "  Study,  my  little  boy ; 
thou  shalt  be  the  talk  of  all  men  before  long."  He 
subsequently  came  under  the  notice  of  the  Ai'ch- 
bishop  of  Paris,  who  brought  him  over  to  England. 
Afterward  he  came  frequently  to  England  ;  he  knew 
More,  the  Chancellor,  intimately.  He  led  from  this 
time  a  kind  of  wandering  life.  Mountjoy,  our  Eng- 
lish Ambassador  at  Paris,  was  the  first  to  obtain  him 
a  i^ension.  He  published  many  books,  among  others 
an  edition  of  the  Greek  Testament,  but  the  work  he 
was  then  best  known  by  was  the  Praise  of  Folly, 
written  here  in  ]\lQrg's  fectuse  ;  it  disappoints  anyone 
who  would  read  it  now.  Also  he  wrote  his  Colloquies, 
a  ver}'  ingenious  book,  and  of  r.  great  delicacy ;  in- 
deed, I  should  say,  to  make  my  friends  understand  the 


140  ULRICH   VOTnT   HUTTEN 

character  of  Erasmus,  that  he  is  more  Hke  Achlison 
than  any  writer  I  could  mention  who  is  familiarly 
known  in  this  country.  I  have  said  what  his  course 
was  toward  the  Reformation — that  at  first  he  ap- 
proved of  Luther,  and  then  disapproved  of  him.  He 
was  a  man  certainly  of  great  merit,  nor  have  I  much 
to  say  against  him  ;  yet  when  I  hear  historians  con- 
trasting him  favorably  with  Luther,  and  actually  up- 
braiding Luther  with  him,  I  must  dissent  altogether 
from  that,  and  say  that  Erasmus  is  not  to  be  named 
by  the  side  of  Luther  ;  a  mere  writer  of  poems,  a 
"  litterateur."  There  are  many  things  in  Erasmus 
to  object  to.  Franz  Horn  is  very  angry,  too,  about 
this  setting  up  of  Erasmus,  concerning  which,  I  for 
one,  desire  nothing  more  than  not  to  get  angry  too, 
and  spasmodic,  as  Luther  himself  did,  in  fact,  suc- 
ceed in  doing.  Franz  says  Erasmus  belonged  to  a 
class  of  people  who  are  very  desirous  to  stand  well 
with  God,  yet,  at  the  same  time,  are  very  loth  to 
stand  ill  with  the  devil ;  who  will  build  a  church  to 
God,  and  a  chapel  by  the  side  of  it  for  the  devil,  a 
sort  of  position  that  really  is  not  good  in  the  world. 
There  is  a  third  striking  German  character  whom 
we  must  notice,  Ulricli  von  Hutten.  He  was  a 
nobleman  by  birth,  destined  at  first  by  his  father, 
a  rather  foolish,  obstinate  man,  to  be  a  monk,  which 
not  wishing  to  be,  he  was  then  marked  out  for  a 
lawyer,  but  not  that  either  would  he  be  ;  till  at  last 
he  got  sent  by  some  cousins,  who  understood  him 


SATIRE   ON  THE   MONKS  141 

better  than  his  father  did,  to  a  school  or  university 
of  some  kind,  where  he  occupied  himself  with  liter- 
ary pursuits.  He  wrote  many  books,  both  in  Latin 
and  German,  principally  in  Latin,  and  became  dis- 
tinguished and  known  in  his  own  country ;  but  his 
life  was  never  easy  to  him.  He  was  a  wanderer  all 
his  days,  travelling  about  to  Frankfort  and  other 
places,  and  even  to  Rome.  He  was  much  too  head- 
long a  man  ;  he  so  hated  injustice  that  he  did  not 
know  how  to  deal  with  it,  and  he  became  heart- 
broken by  it  at  last. 

He  had  begun  before  Luther  to  satirize  monk- 
ery in  his  "  Epistolse  Obscurorum,"  not  entirely 
written  by  him,  indeed  ;  three  or  four  of  the  best 
heads  joined  with  him  in  it.  It  is  very  amusing, 
but  full  of  all  kinds  of  platitudes  ;  a  collection  of 
letters  supposed  to  be  written  by  monks,  one  monk 
writing  to  another  what  he  intends  to  do,  and  la}^- 
ing  bare  all  the  details  of  that  miserabl-.  imbecile 
life.  Erasmus,  it  is  related,  burst  out  laughing  on 
reading  it,  and  by  this  means  broke  a  suppuration 
in  the  throat,  which  had  formed  and  endangered  his 
life,  a  thing,  therefore,  of  immense  consequence  to 
him.  Ulrich  had  many  struggles  to  meet.  His 
cousin  was  basely  hanged  by  the  Duke  of  Wirtem- 
berg,  assassinated  in  a  wood  for  some  dark  purpose. 
Hutten  indignantly  pleaded  everywhere  against  the 
Duke  for  this,  and  even  went  to  war  with  him,  in 
alhance  with  the   free  towns  then   in   arms  acrainst 


142  STAUNCH   SUPPORT   OF   LUTHER 

him.  He  found  it  difficult  to  get  any  man  in  office 
to  patronize  him.  He  says  of  himself  that  he 
*'  hated  tumult "  of  all  kinds ;  and  it  was  thus  a 
painful  and  sad  position  for  him — who  wished  to 
obey  order,  while  a  still  higher  order  commanded 
him  to  disobey ;  when  the  standing  by  the  existing 
order  would  be,  in  fact,  the  standing  by  disorder. 

Uirich  was  miserably  disordered  all  his  life,  and 
wholly  without  guidance.  He,  a  proud  nobleman's 
son,  looked  down  at  first  on  Luther,  a  poor  monk  ; 
but  immediately  after  the  Diet  of  Worms  he  recog- 
nized that  Luther  was  a  great  man,  and  soon  main- 
tained a  correspondence  with  him.  He  once  wrote 
to  Luther  :  "  Thy  work  is  of  God,  and  will  con- 
tinue ;  mine  "  (his  was  to  force  Germany  from  monk- 
ery and  oppression),  "  mine  is  of  man,  and  will  not 
continue."  He  was  much  courted  and  flattered  by 
the  Emperor  of  Germany  and  other  Catholic  princes, 
and  even  by  Francis,  the  King  of  the  French  ;  but 
he  positively  refused  to  quit  Luther's  party.  A 
price  was  set  on  his  head  ;  not  exactly  that  either, 
but  the  magistrates  of  his  city  had  certainly  orders 
to  have  him  sent  bound  hand  and  foot  to  Eome, 
and  murderous  assassins  were  hired  to  slay  him, 
from  all  which  he  was  obliged  to  escape  by  flight. 
In  that  journey  he  met  Hochstratten,  the  head 
monk,  whom  he  had  satirized  in  his  "Epistolae 
Obscurorum,"  and  who  had  ever  since  raised  the 
prince's  ire.     Full  of  rage,  he  dashed  down  on  him, 


FRANZ  VON   SICKINGEN  143 

drawing  bis  sword  ;  but  wben  tbe  imbecile  being 
wLo  bad  done  bim  all  tbis  miscbief  uttered  a 
prayer,  cbangiug  bis  purpose  be  burled  bim  away, 
and  passed  on.  In  tbis  journe}',  too,  be  met  witb 
Franz  von  Sickingen,  an  extraordinary,  interesting 
cbaracter,  and  introduced  by  Goetbe  into  bis  "  Ber- 
licbingen."  Franz  gave  bim  sbelter  in  bis  castle,  and 
bere  tbe  two  first  read  Lutber's  books,  and  con- 
fessed tbat  tbe  tbing  wbicb  be  meant,  all  good  men 
sbould  mean !  Ulricb  publisbed  books,  too,  in  tbis 
place. 

Tbe  deatb  of  Sickingen  contains  a  very  noble 
tbing.  He  bad  a  feud  witb  tbe  Arcbbisbop  of 
Treves,  and  be  defended  bimself  in  bis  castle  on 
tbe  Kbine,  Landstein,  wbere  tbe  arcbbisbop  be- 
sieged bim  ;  but  be  could  not  be  overcome  at  all, 
till  one  day,  wbile  looking  at  tbe  state  of  tbe  de- 
fences, be  was  struck  by  a  musket-ball,  and  died  in 
twenty-four  bours  after.  Tbe  castle  at  once  surren- 
dered, as  in  bim  tbe  soul  of  tbe  defence  was  taken 
away.  And  bere  comes  tbe  noble  tbing  I  alluded 
to.  At  tbe  point  of  deatb,  wbile  be  was  ab'eady 
pale  witb  deatb,  tbe  arcbbisbop  came  in  to  see  bim, 
tbe  arcbbisbop  wbo  bad  caused  bis  destruction,  and 
Sickingen  at  once  raised  bis  cap,  unmindful  of  tbe 
feud,  for  bis  reverence  for  wbat  was  above  bim  was 
far  deeper  tban  tbat  ;  and  tbis  seems  to  me  tbe 
noblest,  politest  tbing  tbat  is  recorded  of  any  sucli 
moment  as  tbat. 


144  EEASMUS   AND   HUTTEN 

Sickingen  being  killed,  Hutten  had  no  resource 
but  again  to  wander  forth  ;  and  then  occurred  the 
worst  thing  that  I  have  read  of  Erasmus,  who  once, 
when  poor  and  dependent,  flattered  Hutten,  and  ob- 
tained his  patronage,  but  was  now  living  at  Basle, 
a  rich  man,  and  admitted  to  the  councils  of  the 
Emperor.  To  him  Hutten  came  for  relief,  but  he 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  him.  Hutten  then 
wrote  to  his  friends,  complaining  of  this  miserable 
treatment  of  Erasmus,  and  Erasmus  then  gave  a 
false  account  of  it  in  a  work  he  published,  where- 
upon Hutten  wrote  at  last  to  Erasmus,  most  indig- 
nantly exposing  the  true  affair  as  a  miserably  shab- 
by thing  to  have  been  perpetrated  against  a  poor 
man,  without  hope,  without  money,  without  friends  ! 
Erasmus  then  took  a  violent  antipathy  to  Hutten, 
and  wrote  satires  upon  him  ;  but  it  was  a  poor 
thing  that,  and  he  could  not  clear  himself.  Hutten 
then  wandered  on  ;  but  the  hand  of  death  was  on 
him.  He  came  to  Zurich  ;  but  Erasmus  wrote  be- 
forehand to  the  magistrates,  warning  them  against 
him  as  a  hot-headed  person,  and  they  forced  him  to 
quit  the  place.  He  left  it,  and  came  to  a  small 
island  in  the  lake  of  Zurich,  and  died  there  shortly 
afterward.  He  had  maintained  a  sister  up  to  his 
death,  and  at  his  death  there  was  found  in  his  pock- 
et only  one  thaler.  He  died  in  his  thirty-fifth  year 
— one  of  the  bravest  men  Germany  ever  had,  but  of 
a  spirit  that  could  not  get  to  exhibit  itself  in  litera- 


DEATH   OF   HUTTEN  145 

ture  at  all ;  the  rough  draft  of  something  excellent, 
but  which  could  not  get  out  into  its  full  delineation. 
This  must  suffice  for  what  can  be  said  of  the 
Reformation  in  Germany.  In  my  next  lecture  I 
shall  resume  the  subject  with  reference  to  a  coun- 
try still  more  interesting  to  us — namely,  our  own 
country. 

10 


LECTUEE   VIII. 

Maij  25th 

SECOND  'Pi:.mOJ)— Continued 

The  English:  Thetr  Origin,  Their  Work  and  Des- 
tiny —  Elizabethan  Era  —  Shakespeare  —  John 
Knox — Milton — Beginning  of  Scepticism. 

In  our  last  lecture  we  introduced  ourselves  to  the 
German  people,  the  great  Teutonic  race,  and  to  the 
great  work  which  was  intrusted  to  them  to  do  by 
the  economy  of  Providence  in  this  world  of  ours. 
We  have  now  to  occupy  ourselves  with  one  particu- 
lar tribe  of  the  Teutonic  race  :  whether  or  not  the 
most  important  —  although  from  the  great  things 
they  have  had  to  do  we  might  call  it  so — it  is  indis- 
putably the  most  interesting  to  us,  for  it  is  our  own 
nation,  the  Saxon  or  English.  This  nation,  too, 
first  came  into  decisive  notice  about  the  time  of  the 
Reformation,  and  as  a  nation  much  connected  with 
that  great  event.  We  shall  cast  a  glance  over  the 
period  which  preceded  its  arriving  at  the  condition 
of  an  articulately  -  speaking  nation,  when  it  began 
partly  to  understand  its  own  meaning,  partly  to  an- 
nounce it. 


THE   SAXONS  147 

The  Saxons  are  not  noticed  in  the  earliest  periods 
by  the  Romans.  They  are  not  even  mentioned  in 
Tacitus.  In  Ptolemy  there  is  but  one  single  line 
about  them.  He  speaks  of  "the  Saxons,  a  people 
inhabiting  the  northern  part  of  the  Cimbric  Cher- 
sonesus,"  the  modern  Denmark.  But  they  had 
come  into  extraordinary  notice  from  their  formid- 
able character  in  the  fourth  century,  and  were,  along 
with  the  Lombards,  the  chief  fighters  of  the  Ger- 
man tribes.  As  to  their  piracies,  they  were  addicted 
early  to  the  sea  ;  the  adventurous  of  the  tribe  occu- 
pied themselves  very  much  with  piracy  and  sailing 
of  all  kinds.  Their  feats  in  sailing  and  fighting  ex- 
cited the  greatest  terror  among  the  Romans.  Si- 
donius  Apollinaris  and  Ammianus  Marcellinus  both 
commemorate  the  ungovernable  temper  and  wild 
spirit  of  this  people.  Their  craft  were  of  a  rude 
description,  made  of  wicker  and  covered  with 
leather.  Gibbon  describes  their  habit  of  ascending 
the  Rhine  in  these  wicker  boats,  then  carrying  them 
on  their  shoulders  across  the  country  to  the  Rhone 
and  launching  them  there,  to  make  their  appearance 
in  a  short  time  at  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar.  Am- 
mianus Marcellinus  speaks  much  of  their  fondness 
for  the  sea.  It  is  curious  to  see  in  this  manner 
the  ancestors  of  our  Blakes  and  Nelsons  among 
these  people.  In  general,  indeed,  a  seafaring  peo- 
ple is  required  to  be  one  of  the  strongest  of  peo- 
ples.    Nothing   can   be   a   better    measure   of   the 


148     CHAEACTER  OF  THE  SAXONS 

strength  of  a  man  than  to  put  him  into  a  ship  in 
the  middle  of  the  wild  elements  exjDosed  to  the 
rage  and  variableness  of  the  winds,  which  he  must 
observe  with  an  ever-watchful  care  and  shape  him- 
self by  them,  and  wait  for  and  seize  every  favorable 
instant  for  the  purpose  of  his  enterprise.  Accord- 
ingly we  find  that  the  Dutch  and  English  tribes  are 
the  greatest  of  the  Germans.  So  in  Luden  or  Mas- 
cou,  I  think  Mascou,  we  find  the  mythus  of  the  crea- 
tion of  the  Teutonic  people,  how  one  tribe  was  made 
out  of  the  mould  of  the  valley  of  the  Danube,  an- 
other out  of  water,  but  the  Saxons  out  of  the  Saxa 
or  rock  of  the  Hartz  Mountains.  They  were,  in 
fact,  the  hardest  of  the  tribes,  and  greatly  distin- 
guished in  that  respect  from  the  rest  of  the  Ger- 
mans ;  there  was  a  kind  of  silent  ruggedness  of 
Nature  in  them,  with  the  wild  Berserker  rage 
deeper  down  in  the  Saxons  than  in  others.  They 
have  a  kind  of  resemblance  to  the  Eomans  in  that 
respect,  though  much  of  it  has  not  unfolded  itself 
even  among  the  English,  for  we  have  as  yet  pro- 
duced no  great  painter,  nor  anyone  who  has  ex- 
celled in  the  highest  arts  except  Shakespeare,  and 
yet  a  nation  which  has  produced  a  Shakespeare  we 
may  justly  conclude  to  be  capable  of  producing 
much.  Their  talent,  however,  was  practical  like 
that  of  the  Komans,  a  greatness  of  perseverance, 
adherence  to  a  purpose,  method — i^ractical  great- 
ness in  short. 


ARRIVAL   OF   THE    SAXONS  149 

If  any  seer  among  them  in  the  year  449,  when 
they  landed  here  in  the  Isle  of  Thanet,  could  have 
looked  forward  to  the  year  1838  as  we  can  look  back 
to  449,  he  would  have  said,  as  we  may  say,  that 
great  and  remarkable  as  the  foundation  of  Eome 
certainly  was,  it  was  not  a  greater  fact,  nor  so  great 
even,  as  that  humble  settlement  of  the  Saxons  on 
these  shores.  He  would  have  seen  our  present  do- 
minion extending  from  the  Gulf  of  California,  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  away  up  to  the 
Ganges  and  Burrampootra,  and  descending  even  to 
our  antipodes.  He  would  have  seen  these  descend- 
ants of  Saxons  conquering  more  than  the  Romans 
did,  who  subdued  men,  but  these  subdued  the  in- 
coherences and  difficulties  of  Nature,  reclaiming 
wild  and  boundless  wastes  and  converting  them 
into  arable  land  and  scenes  of  civilization  ! 

For  about  a  hundred  years  after  their  landing 
Saxons  continued  arriving  :  one  regrets  gi-eatly  that 
there  is  no  intelligence  to  be  had  about  this  matter, 
so  full  of  moment,  rude  energy,  and  significance. 
For  three  hundred  years  the  war  with  the  Britons, 
ancient  possessors  of  the  soil,  lasted  ;  these  and  the 
Caledonians  were  gradually  driven  back  into  the 
mountains,  and  the  Lowlands  were  made  into  a 
Saxon  country.  To  this  day  "Saxon"  is  the  Celtic 
name  for  the  English  ;  the  Highland  Scotch  apply 
it  to  the  Lowlanders  jet  The  name  "  English  "  or 
"  Angles  "  arose  out  of  a  small  territory  from  which 


150  SURVIVAL    OF   THE    FITTEST 

they  originally  came,  in  the  Duchy  of  Schleswick, 
where  to  this  day  it  is  called  "  Angleland." 

The  etymology  of  the  name  "Saxons"  is  uncer- 
tain, nor  is  it  of  any  value.  The  opinion  seems  to 
be  that  it  is  derived  from  Saks,  a  sword  or  knife 
worn  by  this  peoj^le.  Nennius  has  preserved  the 
word  of  command  used  by  their  leader  Hengist, 
''  Niemet  hyr  Saxas  !  "  (take  your  knives).  "  Saks  " 
is  the  Westphalian  name  yet,  or  was  when  Mascou 
wrote.  After  these  300  years  there  remained  yet 
300  years  more  of  incessant  fighting  between  the 
different  kingdoms  of  the  Heptarchy.  We  read  of 
battles  and  successions  of  kings,  and  one  endeavors 
to  remember  them,  but  without  success,  except  so 
much  of  this  flocking  or  fighting  as  Milton  gives 
us,  viz.,  that  they  were  the  battles  of  kites  and  crows, 
for  they  have  no  interest  for  us.  Indeed,  those 
who  took  part  in  this  flocking  and  fighting  were 
making  the  reverse  of  a  history  of  England.  Who- 
ever was  uprooting  a  thistle  or  bramble,  or  drain- 
ing out  a  bog,  or  building  himself  a  house,  or,  in 
short,  leaving  a  single  section  of  order  where  he  had 
found  disorder,  that  man  was  writing  the  history  of 
England,  the  others  were  only  obstructing  it.  Yet 
these  battles  were  natural  enough.  The  peoj^le  who 
should  succeed  in  keeping  themselves  at  the  top 
of  affairs  were  the  fittest  to  be  there,  the  weakest 
would  maintain  themselves  for  a  while,  but  when 
the  attack  came   they  would   be  obliged   in  every 


ALFRED  151 

case  to  surrender  to  the  more  force  and  method  that 
was  in  the  others,  which  must  triumph  over  all  the 
incoherent  characters  that  needed  to  be  regulated 
by  it.  A  wild  kind  of  intellect  as  well  as  courage 
was  shown  by  each  party  in  his  own  department,  in 
his  own  circumstances. 

Traces  of  deep  feeling  are  scattered  over  this  his- 
tory, as,  indeed,  over  that  of  all  the  Germans.  For 
example,  there  is  the  speech  of  Clotaire,  the  French 
king,  himself  a  German,  and  a  remarkable  one  it  is. 
When  he  was  dying,  when  he  felt  himself  dying,  he 
exclaimed:  "Wa!  Wa  !  What  great  God  is  this 
that  pulls  down  the  strength  of  the  strongest  kings  ?  '* 
It  was  the  expression  of  a  wild  astonishment  in  the 
barbarous  mind  at  the  terrible  approach  of  some 
great  unknown  thing  which  he  could  not  escape. 
There  was,  too,  an  affectionateness,  a  largeness  of 
soul  in  the  intervals  of  these  fights  of  kites  and 
crows.  We  often  see  a  prince  doing  all  the  good  he 
could,  arranging  everything  as  far  as  it  was  possible 
to  arrange  it. 

There  was  one  memorable  instance  of  this — 
namely,  Alfred.  He  was  not  exactly  the  first  that 
united  the  different  kingdoms  together,  yet  we  ma}', 
on  the  whole,  say  that  he  was  the  first.  He  pos- 
sessed a  very  great  mind,  the  highest  qualification  for 
his  office.  He  lived  in  a  rude,  dark  age.  We  all 
know  his  fighting  against  the  Danish  pirates  ;  his 
succeeding,  after  great  exertions  and  fightings,  to  get 


152  THE   NORMANS 

his  crown  back  to  liim  again ;  and  how  he  pacified 
the  country  by  treaty  and  wise  policy  as  much  as  by 
war.  Then  in  literature  his  services  were,  for  the 
age,  great ;  he  translated  many  books  from  the  Latin 
language  into  Saxon.  He  first  shaped  the  thing  we 
call  the  British  Constitution  ;  he  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  it,  as  it  were.  One  fancies,  too,  that  he  was 
able  to  have  an  instinct  into  the  business,  and  in 
that  view  to  lay  out  institutions  which  have  already 
lasted  1,100  years.  He  founded  Oxford  according 
to  tradition,  not  by  the  name  of  university,  but  at 
an}^  rate  he  founded  schools  there.  He  was  as  great 
a  man  for  this  island  as  Charlemagne  was  the  cen- 
tury before  for  Europe.  His  influence  was  not  for 
the  moment  felt,  but  it  has  borne  abundant  fruit  in 
after  times.  Voltaire  said  of  him  that  he  was  the 
greatest  man  in  history — for  his  self-denial  and 
heroic  endeavors  on  the  one  hand,  and  his  mild 
gentleness  combined  with  that  on  the  other. 

In  the  next  century,  or  a  centmy  and  a  half  after- 
ward, the  Normans  gained  possession  of  the  throne 
of  England,  an  important  event,  which  brought 
this  country  into  more  immediate  connection  with 
the  Continent,  and  produced  other  results  not  all 
beneficial  in  their  way.  They  were  the  same  people 
(I  say  this  in  contradiction  to  a  vague  notion  which 
has  circulated  that,  by  the  Conquest,  England 
became  divided  into  two  peoples),  who  had  left 
their  country  three  or  four  centuries  after  the  Saxon 


ELIZABETH  153 

pirates  bad  come  to  these  shores,  and  in  the  course 
of  their  emigration  had  learned  a  new  language  by 
their  introduction  to  the  Latin  and  the  French,  and 
had  generally  attained  to  a  higher  culture  than  the 
Saxons.  They  endeavored,  too,  to  introduce  the 
French  language  in  this  country,  but  wholly  failed. 

The  history  of  the  succeeding  periods  is  but  a 
strange  description  of  elements.  There  seems  to 
have  been  nothing  but  war.  At  any  rate,  war  was 
far  more  frequent  here  than  in  any  other  country  ; 
and  this  lasted  down  to  the  very  neighborhood  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  for  it  was  not  till  the  reign  of 
her  grandfather  that  the  kingdom  became  consoli- 
dated. Nay,  Scotland  was  still  more  remarkable  in 
this  respect.  It  had  been  continually  fluctuating 
for  six  centuries  before  the  end  of  the  Heptarchy, 
now  embracing  Cumberland,  now  confined  to  the 
Grampians.  But  in  England,  after  the  Wars  of  the 
Roses  had  been  ended,  things  began  to  change,  till 
at  last  the  whole  amalgamated  into  some  distinct 
vital  unity. 

This  was  begun  about  the  time  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, in  many  respects  the  summation  of  innumera- 
ble influences,  the  co-ordination  of  many  things, 
which  till  then  had  been  in  contest ;  the  first  beau- 
tiful outflush  of  energy,  the  first  articulate  spoken 
energy.  There  was  Saxon  energy  before  that,  in 
Hengist  and  in  Horsa  ;  not  a  spoken  energy,  but  a 
silent  one  ;  not  shown  in  speech,  but  in  work.     It 


+ 


154  SHAKESPEARE 

was  here,  as  in  general,  the  end  of  an  epoch  when 
it  began  to  speak.  The  old  principle,  feudalism, 
and  that  other  one,  the  Catholic  religion,  were 
beginning  to  end  ;  when,  like  the  cactus- tree,  which 
blooms  but  once  in  centuries,  so  here  appeared  the 
blossom  of  poetry  for  once,  w^hich  done,  that  energy 
was  to  carry  itself  on  according  to  such  laws  as  are 
suitable  to  it,  abiding  till  the  time  of  a  future  mani- 
festation. Nowhere  has  such  a  number  of  great 
people  been  at  once  produced  as  here  in  the  Eliza- 
bethan era — Bacon,  Raleigh,  Spenser;  above  all, 
Shakespeare !  It  is  not  possible  for  us  to  go 
through  all  those  names  in  our  short  space,  and  we 
must  therefore  confine  our  attention  to  Shakepeare 
alone. 

Shakespeare  is  the  epitome  of  the  era  of  Eliza- 
beth. A  man,  in  whom  that  era,  as  well  as  other 
eras,  have  found  a  voice  ;  one  who  gives  utterance 
to  many  things  silent  before  him,  and  worthy  to  be 
called  the  spokesman  of  our  nation  !  It  is  now  uni- 
versally admitted  that  he  must  be  regarded  as  the 
greatest  person  that  has  been  produced  in  the  lit- 
erature of  modern  Europe.  The  Germans  have 
long  been  as  enthusiastic  admirers  of  him  as  our- 
selves, and  often  more  enlightened  and  judicious 
ones,  for  there  the  highest  minds  have  occupied 
themselves  with  criticism  of  Shakespeare.  One  of 
the  finest  things  of  the  kind  ever  produced  is 
Goethe's   criticism    on   Hamlet   in    his    "  Wilhelm 


HIS   INTELLECT  155 

Meister,"  which  many  among  you  are  aware  of.  I 
may  call  it  the  reproduction  of  Hamlet  in  a  shape 
addressed  to  the  intellect,  as  Hamlet  is  already  ad- 
dressed to  the  imagination.  Even  the  French,  in 
late  times,  have  come  over  to  think  in  the  same  way. 
He  was  one  of  the  great  sons  of  Nature,  like  a 
Homer,  an  ^schylus,  a  Dante — a  voice  from  the 
innermost  heart  of  Nature.  ;  He  speaks  the  dialect 
of  the  sixteenth  century  in  words  much  more  ex- 
pressive and  comprehensive  than  any  used  before 
him,  for  knowledge  had  made  great  progress  in  his 
time,  and  therefore  his  language  became  more  com- 
plex and  rich  in  significance. 

Anyone  who  takes  in  his  likeness  accurately  must 
pronounce  him  an  universal  man  !  There  is  no  tone 
of  feeling  that  is  not  capable  of  yielding  melodious 
resonance  to  that  of  Shakespeare.  AVe  have  the 
southern  sunny  language  of  his  Juliet,  the  wild 
northern  melody  of  his  Hamlet,  varied  with  most 
piercing  feeling  and  tones  of  tenderness  ;  the  rude 
heartfelt  humor  of  his  Autolycuses  and  Dogberry s, 
and,  finally,  the  great  stern  Berserker  rage  burning 
deep  down  under  all,  and  making  all  to  grow  out  in 
the  most  flourishing  way,  doing  ample  justice  to  all 
feelings,  not  developing  any  one  in  particular,  but 
yielding  to  us  all  that  can  be  required  of  him  upon 
every  subject.  In  a  word,  if  I  were  bound  to  de- 
scribe him,  I  should  be  inclined  to  say  that  his  in- 
tellect was  far  greater  than  that  of  any  other  man 


156  HIS   HISTORICAL  INSIGHT 

who  has  given  an  account  of  himself  by  writing 
books.  I  know  that  there  have  been  distinctions 
drawn  between  intellect,  imagination,  fancy,  and 
so  on,  and  doubtless  there  are  conveniences  in  such 
division,  but  at  the  same  time  we  must  keep  this 
fact  in  view,  that  the  mind  is  one,  and  consists  not 
of  bundles  of  faculties  at  all,  showing  ever  the  same 
features  however  it  exhibits  itself  —  whether  in 
painting,  singing,  fighting,  ever  with  the  same  phys- 
iognomy. And  when  I  hear  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  poet  and  the  thinker  I  really  see  no  dif- 
ference at  all,  for  the  poet  is  really  such  by  dint  of 
superior  vision,  by  dint  of  a  more  deep  serene  vi- 
sion, and  he  is  a  poet  solely  in  virtue  of  that.  Thus 
I  can  well  understand  how  the  Duke  of  Marlbor- 
ough once  declared  that  all  his  acquaintance  with 
the  history  of  England  was  owing  to  Shakespeare. 
One  can  understand  it,  I  say,  for  Shakespeare  ar- 
rived at  more  of  the  meaning  of  history  than  many 
books  written  on  history  could  have  done.  His  in- 
tellect seized  at  once  what  was  the  proper  object  of 
historical  interest,  and  put  it  down  there  as  the 
leading  incident  of  his  play.  The  trace  of  intellect 
is  more  legible  in  Shakespeare  than  in  any  other 
writer.  Bacon,  indeed,  was  great,  but  not  to  be 
compared  with  Shakespeare.  He  not  only  sees  the 
object  but  sees  through  it,  sympathizes  with  it,  and 
makes  it  his  own.  Let  us  look  into  the  scheme  of 
his  works,  the  play  of  Hamlet,  for  instance.     Goethe 


HIS   UNCONSCIOUSNESS  157 

found  out,  and  has  really  made  plausible  to  his 
readers,  all  sorts  of  harmonies  in  the  structure  of 
his  plan's  with  the  nature  of  things,  and  we  have 
realized  in  this  way  all  that  could  be  demanded  of 
him.  And  what  is  still  more  excellent,  I  am  sure 
that  Shakesj^eare  himself  had  no  conception  at  all 
of  any  such  meaning  in  his  poem ;  he  had  no 
scheme  of  the  kind.  He  w^ould  jast  look  into  the 
story,  his  noble  mind,  the,  serene  depth  of  it,  would 
look  in  on  it  as  it  w^as  by  nature,  with  a  sort  of 
noble  instinct,  and  in  no  other  way.  If  he  had 
written  a  criticism  upon  it  he  would  not  at  all  have 
said  what  Goethe  said  about  it.  And  thus  when  we 
hear  of  so  much  said  of  the  art  of  any  great  writer 
it  is  not  art  at  all,  it  is  properly  nature.  It  is  not 
known  to  the  author  himself,  but  is  the  instinctive 
behest  of  his  mind.  This  all-producing  earth  knows 
not  the  symmetry  of  the  oak  which  springs  from 
it.  It  is  all  beautiful,  not  a  branch  is  out  of  its 
place,  all  is  symmetry  there  ;  but  the  earth  has  it- 
self no  conception  of  it,  and  produced  it  solely  by 
the  virtue  that  was  in  itself.  So  is  the  case  with 
Homer  ;  and  then  critics  slip  in  in  the  rear  of  these 
men  and  mark  down  the  practice  they  followed,  and 
prescribe  it  to  others  for  imitation,  forgetting  that 
the  very  thing  to  be  prescribed  is  the  healthy  mind 
of  these  men,  which  of  itself  knows  what  to  put 
down  and  what  to  omit  in  the  beautiful  sympathy 
of  brotherhood  wdtli  their  subject,  but  not  how  to 


158  HIS   MORALS 

follow  certain  prescribed  rules  about  beginning  in 
the  middle,  end,  or  beginning  of  the  subject,  and 
other  rules  of  that  sort. 

I  have  generally  found  that  morals  in  a  man  are 
the  counterpart  of  the  intellect  that  is  in  him.  In 
fact,  morality  is  the  noblest  force  in  his  mind,  the 
soul  of  his  soul,  and  must  lie  at  the  root  of  all  the 
great  things  he  could  utter.  In  Shakespeare,  then, 
there  are  always  the  noblest  sympathies,  no  sectari- 
anism, no  cruelty,  no  narrowness,  no  vain  egotism  ; 
he  is  the  best  illustration  we  could  have  of  what  I 
am  always  talking  about,  consciousness  and  uncon- 
sciousness. The  things  great  and  deep  in  him  he 
seems  to  have  no  notion  of  at  all.  Occasionally  w^e 
have  certain  magniloquent  passages  which  at  this  day 
we  can  scarcely  understand,  often  bombastic,  vastly 
inferior  to  his  ordinary  compositions,  and  these  he 
seems  to  have  imagined  extraordinarily  great ;  but, 
in  general,  there  is  a  fervent  sincerity  in  any  matter 
he  undertakes,  by  which  one  sees  at  once  as  through 
a  window  into  the  beautiful  greatness  of  the  soul  of 
man.  And  as  to  his  life,  what  a  beautiful  life  was 
that,  amid  trials  enough  to  break  the  heart  of  any 
other  man.  Poverty,  and  a  mean  poor  destiny, 
which  if  he  were  an  ambitious  man  would  have 
driven  him  mad,  but  he  would  not  suffer  himself  to 
be  subdued  by  it.  And  it  was  fortunate  for  us. 
If  he  had  been  suffered  to  live  quietly  in  Warwick- 
shire his  mind  was  so  rich  in  itself  he  would  have 


HIS   MOTIVE    AND    METHOD  159 

found  such  "  sermons  in  stones  and  good  in  every- 
thing" that  he  would  probably  not  have  troubled 
the  world  at  all  with  his  productions.     It  is  thus 
that  in  all  departments  of  thought  an  accidental 
thing,  the  action  of  accident,  becomes  often  of  the 
greatest  importance.     For  the  greatest  man  is  al- 
ways a  quiet  man  by  nature,  we  are  sure  not  to  find 
greatness  in  a  prurient  noisy  man.      Thus  Shakes- 
peare at  first  lived,  running  about  the  woods  in  his 
youth,  together  witb,  as  we  find  by  dim  traditions, 
all  the  wild  frolic  of  that  age  and  place.    Stealing 
deer  and  the  like  feats  of  ebullient  buoyancy,  till 
distress  sends  him  to  London  to  write  his  immor- 
tal plays  there !     And  I  will  here,  before  conclud- 
ing my  remarks  on  Shakespeare,  add  a  few  words 
on  the  conditions  under  which  all  human  things  are 
to  be  written.     We  must  say  that  what  the  critics 
talk  about,  the  harmony  of  the  poet's  purpose  is  not 
true.     In  Shakespeare's  plays  genius  is  under  fet- 
ters, he  has  in  general  taken  some  old  story  and 
used  that  for  the  subject  of  his  play,  with  the  mere 
purpose  to  gather  an  audience  to  the  Bankside  The- 
atre ;  this  was  the  only  problem  he  had  to  resolve, 
Nature  and  his  own  noble  mind  did  the  rest.     In 
consequence  of  this  we  find  in  some  of  his  pieces 
many  things  vague   and   quite   unsatisfactory,  and 
are  unable  to  discover  any  significance  about  them, 
but  ever  and  anon  we  see  a  burst  of  truth,  and  are 
forced   to   exclaim,    "  Yes,  that  is  true  I  "    That  is 


160  JOHN   KNOX 

the  case  with  the  deHneation  of  human  feeHngs  in 
every  age. 

I  shall  now  very  reluctantly  leave  Shakespeare, 
and  direct  your  notice  to  another  great  man,  very 
different  from  Shakespeare — John  Knox.  He  and 
Shakespeare  lived  in  the  same  age  ;  he  was,  indeed, 
sixty  years  old  when  Shakespeare  was  born,  but,  at 
any  rate,  both  lived  in  the  same  age  together.  0.f 
him  it  may  be  said,  that  if  Shakespeare  was  the 
most  giant-like  man,  and  the  highest  of  jDoets,  John 
Knox  seems,  if  one  knew  him  rightl}',  to  have  been 
as  entirely  destitute  of  immorality  as  Shakespeare 
was  of  prose. 

I  cannot,  however,  think  that  he  is  to  be  com- 
pared with  Luther,  as  some  of  the  Germans  in  these 
days  have  done,  who  have  set  him  even  above 
Luther  ;  struck  with  the  great  veracity  of  Knox. 
Luther  would  have  been  a  great  man  in  other  things 
besides  the  Keformation  ;  a  great,  substantial,  happy 
man,  who  must  have  excelled  in  whatever  matter  he 
undertook.  Knox  had  not  that  faculty,  but  simply 
this,  of  standing  entirely  upon  truth  ;  it  is  not  that 
his  sincerity  is  known  to  him  to  be  sincerity,  but  it 
arises  from  a  sense  of  the  impossibility  of  any  other 
procedure.  He  has  been  greatly  abused  by  many 
persons  for  his  extremely  rough  and  uncourteous 
behavior,  for  he  had  a  terrible  piece  of  work  to  do. 
He  has  been  even  represented  as  struggling  for  a 
mere  whim  of  his  own,  regardless  altogether  of  other 


HIS   EAKLY    EXPERIENCE  161 

things.  But  that  charge  is  not  true,  and  as  to  that 
moral  rigor  of  his,  it  is  the  great  thing  after  all : 
given  a  sincere  man,  you  have  given  a  thing  worth 
attending  to.  Since  sincerit}-,  what  is  it  but  a  di- 
vorce from  earth  and  earthly  feelings  ?  The  sun, 
which  shines  upon  the  earth,  and  seems  to  touch  it, 
does  not  touch  the  earth  at  alL  So  the  man  who  is 
free  of  earth  is  the  only  one  that  can  maintain  the 
great  truths  of  existence,  not  by  an  ill-natured  talk- 
ing forever  about  truth,  but  it  is  he  who  does  the 
truth.  And  this  is  a  great  and  notable  object  to  be 
attended  to,  for  that  is  the  very  character  of  Knox. 
He  was  called  out  to  free  a  people  from  dark  super- 
stitions and  degradations  into  life  and  order.  It  is 
very  notable  that  at  first  he  had  no  idea  of  being  a 
reformer,  although  he  had  a  clear  sound  view  that 
Protestantism  must  be  the  true  religion,  and  the 
Catholic  religion  false.  Though  a  monk,  he  deter- 
mined now  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  Catholicism, 
and  he  withdrew  from  all  prominence  in  the  world 
until  he  had  reached  the  age  of  forty-tkree,  an  age 
of  quietude  and  composure.  When  he  was  besieged 
in  the  Castle  of  St.  Andrew's  along  with  his  master, 
whose  children  he  educated,  he  had  many  confer- 
ences with  his  master's  chaplain.  The  latter,  having 
first  consulted  with  the  people,  who  were  anxious  to 
hear  Knox  preach  too,  suddenly  addressed  him  from 
the  pulpit,  saying  that  "  it  was  not  right  for  him  to 
sit  still  when  great  things  were  to  be  spoken  ;  that 
11 


162  HIS   CONSTANCY 

the  harvest  was  great,  but  the  laborers  were  few  ; 
that  he  (the  chaplain)  was  not  so  great  a  naan  as 
Knox,  and  that  all  were  desirous  to  hear  the  latter  ; 
is  it  not  so,  brethren  ? "  he  asked,  to  which  they 
assented.  Knox  then  had  to  get  into  the  pulpit, 
trembling,  with  a  pale  face,  and  finally  he  burst  into 
tears,  and  came  down,  not  having  been  able  to  say 
a  word. 

From  this  time  he  wandered  about,  resisting  the 
destiny  that  was  for  him,  until  at  last  he  dared  not 
refuse  any  more.  It  was  a  fiery  kind  of  baptism 
that  initiated  him.  He  had  become  a  preacher  not 
three  months,  when  the  castle  surrendered,  and  they 
were  all  taken  prisoners  and  worked  as  galley  slaves 
on  the  river  Loire,  confined  for  life  there.  The 
chiefs  of  the  conspirators  were  put  in  prison ;  this 
was  the  year  forty-seven  or  forty-nine,  from  which 
his  whole  life  forward  was  as  a  battle.  Seven  years 
after  we  find  him  escaping  from  the  French  galleys, 
when  he  came  to  England. 

In  Luther  we  often  see  an  overshadowing  of 
despair,  and  especially  towards  the  end  of  his  life, 
when  he  describes  himself  as  "heartily  sick  of  ex- 
istence, and  most  desirous  that  his  Master  would 
call  him  to  his  rest."  Another  time  he  laments 
the  hopelessness  of  Protestantism,  and  says  that  all 
sects  will  rise  up  at  last  in  the  day  of  judgment. 
But  there  never  was  anything  like  this  in  Knox  ; 
he  never  gave  up,  even  in  the  water  of  the  Loire. 


HIS   SENSE   OF   IIUMOU  163 

They  were  ordered  to  hear  mass  ;  but  though  they 
went  to  hear  it,  they  could  not  be  prevented  from 
putting  on  their  caps  during  it.  Their  Virgin 
Mary  was  once  brought  for  some  kind  of  reverence 
to  the  people  in  the  galley,  and  it  was  handed  to 
Knox  first ;  but  he  saw  nothing  there  but  a  painted 
piece  of  wood — a  "  pented  bredd,"  as  he  called  it  in 
his  Scotch  dialect  ;  and  on  their  pressing  him,  he 
threw  it  into  the  water,  saying  that  "  the  Virgin, 
being  wooden,  would  swim."  There  was  a  great 
deal  of  humor  in  Knox,  as  bright  a  humor  as  in 
Chaucer,  expressed  in  his  own  quaint  Scotch.  He 
wrote  the  History  of  the  Scotch  Reformation.  By 
far  better  than  any  other  history  is  that  autobiog- 
raphy of  his.  Above  all,  there  is  in  him  a  genuine 
natural  rusticity,  a  decided  earnestness  of  j^urpose  ; 
the  good  nature  and  humor  appear  in  a  very  strik- 
ing waj',  not  as  a  sneer  altogether,  but  as  real  de- 
light at  seeing  ludicrous  objects.  Thus,  when  he 
describes  the  two  archbishops  quarrelling,  no  doubt 
he  was  delighted  to  see  the  disgrace  it  brought  on 
their  church  ;  but  he  was  chiefly  excited  by  the 
really  ludicrous  spectacle  of  rochets  flying  about 
and  vestments  torn,  and  the  struggle  each  made  to 
overturn  the  other. 

The  sum  of  the  objections  made  to  Knox,  and 
which  have  obfuscated  and  depressed  his  memory 
for  centuries,  seems  to  be  his  intolerance  ;  that  he 
wanted  tolerance   and  all  the  qualities  that  follow 


164        HIS   INTOLERANCE  AND    JIUDENESS 

out  of  it ;  and  particularly  for  bis  rude,  brutal  way 
of  speaking  to  Queen  Mary.  Now,  I  confess  that 
when  I  came  to  read  these  very  speeches,  my  opin- 
ion of  these  charges  was  that  they  are  quite  un- 
deserved. It  was  quite  impossible  for  any  man  to 
do  Knox's  functions  and  be  civil  too  ;  he  had  either 
to  be  uncivil,  or  to  give  up  Scotland  and  Protes- 
tantism altogether.  Mary  wanted  to  make  of  Scot- 
land a  mere  shooting-ground  for  her  uncles,  the 
Guises.  In  many  respects  she  seems  to  have  been 
a  weak,  light-headed  woman,  and  Knox,  in  the  ques- 
tion between  civility  and  duty,  was  bound  to  stand 
by  the  latter  and  not  by  the  former  ;  but  his  in- 
civility was  not  at  all  rude  or  brutal ;  it  was  noth- 
ing more  than  the  statement  of  what  was  necessary 
to  be  done.  It  was  unfortunate,  too,  for  him  that 
the  sovereign  was  a  woman,  that  he  had  not  a  man 
to  deal  with  ;  there  would  have  been  less  commis- 
eration then,  and  he  would  not  have  been  afraid  to 
speak  in  the  same  way  to  a  man  if  one  had  been 
there.  It  was  truly  said  of  him  on  his  death-bed 
by  the  Earl  of  Morton  :  "  There  he  lies  that  never 
feared  the  face  of  man  !  "  When  I  look  at  what  he 
had  to  do  ;  at  tlie  wild  people,  the  barbarous  horde 
he  found  it ;  and  how  he  left  it  a  quiet,  civilized 
one,  and  how  he  brought  down  into  the  meanest 
minds,  into  every  hut  of  Scotland,  the  greatest 
thoughts  that  ever  were  in  the  mind  of  mai),  I  can- 
not but  admire  him,  and  expect  all  honest  peoj^le  to 


MILTON  135 

do  the  same,  however  they  may  differ  from  him  in 
opiuioii.  We  canuot  expect  all  men's  opinions  to 
tally  with  our  own.  It  ought  to  be  enough  for  us 
that  there  is  sincerity  of  belief,  of  conviction. 

The  third  person  to  whom  I  have  to  direct  your 
attention  is  Milton.  He  lived  a  century  from  Knox, 
and  he  may  be  considered  as  a  summing  up,  com- 
posed, as  it  were,  of  the  two — of  Shakespeare  and 
Knox.  As  to  Shakespeare,  one  does  not  find  what 
religion  he  was  of  ;  an  universal  believer,  impressed 
with  many  things  which  ma}^  be  called  religious  ; 
having  reverence  for  everything  that  bore  the  mark 
of  the  Deity,  but  of  no  particular  sect,  not  particular- 
ly Protestant  more  than  Catholic.  But  Milton  was 
altogether  sectarian — a  Presbyterian,  one  might  say. 
He  got  his  knowledge  out  of  Knox,  for  Knox's  in- 
fluence was  not  confined  to  Scotland.  It  was  plant- 
ed there  at  first,  and  continued  growing  in  his  own 
country  till  it  filled  it,  and  then  it  spread  itself  in- 
to England,  working  great  events,  and  finally,  after 
causing  the  quarrel  between  Scotland  and  Charles 
I,  it  ended  in  the  Revolution  of  1688,  an  event  the 
effects  of  which  benefit  England  to  this  day. 

Milton  learned  much  of  Knox.  He  was  partly 
the  religious  philosopher,  partly  the  poet,  for  it 
must  be  a  little  mind  that  cannot  see  that  he  was  a 
poet— one  of  the  wild  Saxon  mind,  full  of  deep  re- 
ligious melody  that  sounds  like  cathedral  music. 
However,  he  must  not  be  ranked  with  Shakespeare. 


166  THE   PARADISE   LOST 

He  stands  relative  to  Shakespeare  as  Tasso  or 
Ariosto  does  to  Dante,  as  Virgil  to  Homer.  He  is 
conscious  of  writing  an  epic,  and  of  being  the  great 
man  he  is.  No  great  man  ever  felt  so  great  a 
consciousness  as  Milton.  That  consciousness  was 
the  measure  of  his  greatness  ;  he  was  not  one  of 
those  who  reach  into  actual  contact  with  the  deep 
fountain  of  greatness.  His  "  Paradise  Lost  "  is  not 
an  epic  in  its  composition  as  Shakespeare's  utter- 
ances are  epic.  It  does  not  come  out  of  the  heart 
of  things ;  he  hadn't  it  lying  there  to  pour  it  out  in 
one  gush  ;  it  seems  rather  to  have  been  welded  to- 
gether afterward.  His  sympathies  with  things  are 
much  narrower  than  Shakespeare's — too  sectarian. 
In  universality  of  mind  there  is  no  hatred  ;  it  doubt- 
less rejects  what  is  displeasing,  but  not  in  hatred 
for  it.  Everything  has  a  right  to  exist.  Shake- 
speare was  not  polemical :  Milton  was  polemical  al- 
together. 

Milton's  disquisitions  on  these  subjects  are  quite 
wearisome  to  us  now.  "Paradise  Lost"  is  a  very 
ambitious  poem,  a  great  picture  painted  on  huge 
canvas  ;  but  it  is  not  so  great  a  thing  as  to  con- 
centrate our  minds  upon  the  deep  things  within 
ourselves  as  Dante  does,  to  show  what  a  beautiful 
thing  the  life  of  man  is  ;  it  is  to  travel  with  paved 
streets  beside  us  rather  than  lakes  of  fire.  This 
Dante  has  done,  and  Milton  not.  There  is  no  life 
in  Milton's  characters.     Adam  and  Eve  are  beautiful, 


167 


graceful  objects,  but  no  one  has  breathed  the  Pyg- 
malion life  into  them  ;  they  remain  cold  statues. 
Milton's  sympathies  were  with  things  rather  than 
with  men,  the  scenery  and  phenomena  of  nature, 
the  trim  gardens,  the  burning  lake  ;  but  as  for  the 
phenomena  of  the  mind,  he  was  not  able  to  see 
them.  He  has  no  delineations  of  mind  except 
Satan,  of  which  we  may  say  that  Satan  was  his  own 
character,  the  black  side  of  it.  I  wish,  however,  to 
be  understood  not  to  speak  at  all  in  disparagement 
of  Milton  ;  far  from  that. 

In  our  next  lecture  we  shall  notice  French  litera- 
ture. 


LECTURE    IX. 

THIRD  PEEIOD 

Voltaire— The  French— Scepticism— From  Rabelais 
TO  Rousseau. 

Of  this  Lecture  no  record  exists. 


LECTURE   X. 

June    \st 

THIRD  V^mOT>— Continued 

Eighteenth  Century  ix  England— Whitfield— Swift 
—Sterne — Johnson— Hume. 

In  onr  lecture  of  this  day  we  shall  cast  an  eye  upon 
England  during  the  eighteenth  century,  a  period  of 
wide  consec^uence  to  us,  and  therefore  most  inter- 
esting to  us  now  in  the  nineteenth  centuiy. 

In  our  last  lecture  we  saw  the  melancholy  phe- 
nomenon of  a  system  of  beliefs  which  had  grown 
up  for  1,800  years,  and  had  formed  during  that  pe- 
riod great  landmarks  of  the  thought  of  man,  crum- 
bling down  at  last,  and  dissolving  itself  in  suicidal 
ruin  ;  and  we  saw  one  of  the  most  remarkable  na- 
tions of  men  engaged  in  destroying  :  nothing  grow- 
ing in  the  great  seed-field  of  time,  so  that  w^ell 
might  Goethe  say,  "  My  inheritance,  how  bare ! 
Time,  how  bare  !  "  For  everything  man  does  is  as 
seed  cast  into  a  seed -field,  and  there  it  grows  on 
forever.  But  the  French  sowed  nothing.  Voltaire, 
on  the  contrary,  casting  firebrands  among  the  dry 


170  FRENCH   SCEPTICISM 

leaves,  produced  the  combustion  we  shall  notice  by 
and  by.  Of  Yoltaire  himself  we  could  make  but 
little — a  man  of  a  great  vivacity  of  mind,  the  great- 
est acuteness,  presenting  most  brilliant  coruscations 
of  genius,  but  destitute  of  depth,  scattering  himself 
abroad  upon  all  subjects,  but  in  great  things  doing 
nothing  exce23t  to  canker  and  destroy.  This  being 
once  conceived,  that  the  people  had  fallen  into  scep- 
ticism, we  can  imagine  that  all  other  provinces  of 
thought  were  quite  sure  of  being  cultivated  in  the 
same  unfruitful  desert  manner — politics,  for  in- 
stance. In  France,  too,  appeared  Mably,  Monte- 
squieu, and  an  innumerable  host  of  other  writers  of 
the  same  sort,  finally  summed  up  in  the  Contrat 
Social  of  Kousseau.  The  only  use  to  which  they  put 
the  intellect  was  not  to  look  outwardly  upon  nature, 
and  love  or  hate  as  circumstances  required,  but  to 
inquire  why  the  thing  was  there  at  all,  and  to  ac- 
count for  it  and  argue  about  it. 

So  it  was  in  England  too,  and  in  all  European 
countries.  The  two  great  features  of  French  intel- 
lect were  formalism  and  scepticism.  These  became 
the  leading  intellectual  features  of  all  the  nations  of 
that  century.  French  literature  got  itself  estab- 
lished in  all  countries.  One  of  the  shallowest  things 
that  has  ever  existed,  it  never  told  man  anything  ; 
there  never  was  any  message  it  had  to  deliver  him. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  the  most  logically 
precise  of  all ;  it  stood  on  established  rules,  and 


REIGN   OF   QUACKERY  171 

was  the  best  calculated  to  make  its  way  among  na- 
tions. Even  in  Germany  it  became  so  popular  that, 
for  a  time,  it  actually  seemed  to  have  extirpated  the 
public  mind.  In  England  too,  and  in  Spain,  where 
it  was  introduced  by  the  Bourbon  sovereigns,  and 
where  the  beautiful  literature  of  Cervantes  dwindled 
away  before  it,  so  as  never  to  have  recovered  itself 
since.  It  is  not  because  any  particular  doctrine  is 
questioned,  but  because  society  gets  unbelieving  al- 
together, and  faith  gets  dwindled  altogether  into 
mere  chimeras,  so  that,  to  an  observer,  it  might  be 
doubtful  whether  the  whole  earth  were  not  hyj)o- 
thetical.  He  sees  the  quack  established  ;  he  sees 
truth  trodden  down  to  the  earth  everywhere  around 
him  ;  in  his  own  office  he  sees  quackery  at  work, 
and  that  part  of  it  which  is  done  b}'  quackery  is 
done  better  than  all  the  rest ;  till  at  last  he,  too, 
concludes  in  favor  of  this  order  of  things,  and  gets 
himself  enrolled  among  this  miserable  set,  eager  af- 
ter profit,  and  of  no  belief  except  the  belief  always 
held  among  such  persons,  that  Money  icill  buy  mon- 
ey's iDorth,  and  that  Pleasure  is  pleasant.  But  woe 
to  that  land  and  its  people  if,  for  what  they  do,  they 
expect  payment  at  all  times  !  It  is  bitter  to  see. 
Such  times  are  extremely  painful — as  it  were,  the 
winter  weather  of  the  state.  Woe  to  the  state  if 
there  comes  no  spring  !  All  men  will  suffer  from  it 
with  confusion  in  the  very  heart  of  them. 

In  England  this  baneful  spirit  was  not  so  deep  as 


172  THE   KEIGN    OF   POLEMICS 

in  France,  and  for  several  reasons.  One  was  that 
their  nature,  the  Teutonic  nature,  is  much  slower 
than  the  French  ;  much  deeper,  not  so  absorbed 
at  any  time  as  the  French  has  been,  whether  with 
scepticism  or  more  worthy  things.  Another  reason 
was  that  England  was  a  Protestant,  free  country, 
and,  as  contra-distinguished  from  France,  a  well- 
regulated  countr}'.  An  Englishman,  too,  will  moder- 
ate his  opinions,  and  at  any  time  keep  them  to  him- 
self. We  find  many  simply  trusting  themselves  to 
the  examination  of  the  great  things  of  the  world, 
but  notwithstanding  barely  keeping  out  of  this  dark 
region  of  complete  scepticism,  and  doing  many 
things  hearty  and  manly  in  spite  of  that.  In  France, 
on  the  contrary,  all  things  were  in  an  extremely  bad 
state,  much  depending  on  Jesuits.  In  the  eigh- 
teenth centur}',  however — here  with  us  a  century  of 
disputation,  if  not  of  complete  unbelief — a  century 
of  contrariety,  there  was  nothing  to  be  found  but 
argument  everywhere. 

Never  before  was  there  so  much  argument,  liter- 
ary argument  in  particular.  All  things  were  brought 
down  to  the  one  category  of  argument ;  from  con- 
troversies about  Dr.  Sacheverell,  through  the  whole 
range  of  metaphysics,  up  to  the  Divine  legation  of 
Moses,  essays  on  miracles,  and  the  like,  by  men  like 
Hume  and  Paley,  and  down  to  the  writers  of  our 
own  time.  Nichols'  Anecdotes  of  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury, an  interesting  book,  offers  a  curious  picture  of 


SILENCE  173 

tills  state  of  things.  Nine-tenths  of  his  anecdotes  are 
about  the  Church  and  Church  questions,  as  if  the 
human  intellect  had  nothing  to  do  but  with  polem- 
ics. Now,  though  I  do  all  honor  to  logic  in  its 
place,  I  will  venture  to  say  that  such  subjects  as 
these,  high  subjects  of  faith  in  religion,  faith  in 
polity,  are  as  good  as  lost  if  there  be  no  other  way 
than  by  logic  to  take  them  up.  I  must  impress  upon 
your  minds  the  words  of  Goethe  :  "  The  highest  is 
uot  capable  of  being  sj^oken  oaticarch  at  all."  Ever 
has  deep  secrec}^  been  observed  in  sacred  things. 
Pompey  could  not  understand  this,  when  he  sought 
to  discover  what  veiled  thing  that  was  in  the  temple 
of  Jerusalem. 

Among  the  Egyptians,  too,  there  was  the  veiled 
figure  of  Sais,  not  to  be  looked  upon.  And  secrecy 
denotes  importance  in  much  lower  things  that  that. 
A  man  who  has  no  secrecy  in  him  is  still  regarded 
as  having  no  kind  of  sense  in  him  for  apprehending 
whatever  is  greatest  and  best  in  the  w^orld  !  I  ad- 
mire much  that  inscription  in  the  Swiss  gardens, 
"  Speech  is  silvern,  silence  is  golden  !  "  After  speech 
has  done  its  best,  silence  has  to  include  all  that 
speech  has  forgotten  or  cannot  express.  Speech  is 
of  time,  of  to-day  ;  eternity  is  silent.  All  great  things 
are  silent.  Whenever  they  get  to  be  debated  on  by 
logic,  tlie}^  are  as  good  as  lost.  It  is  impossible  to 
prove  faith  or  morality  by  speech  at  all,  for  logic,  if 
we  consider  it,  what  does  it  mean?     It  pretends  to 


174  LOGIC   AND   BELIEF 

enforce  men  to  adopt  a  belief,  and  yet  there  is  no 
such  constraint  possible  in  that  way.  Looking  at  the 
whole  circle  of  things  summoned  before  logic,  I  do 
not  find  more  than  one  single  object  taken  in  by 
logic  entirely,  and  that  is  Euclid's  Elements.  In 
other  respects  logic,  speaking  accurately,  can  do  no 
more  than  define  to  others  what  it  is  you  believe  ; 
and  when  you  have  so  done,  a  mind  made  like  yours, 
which  sees  that  you  believe,  will  perhaps  believe 
also.  But  in  mathematics,  where  things  are  called 
by  certain  simple  and  authorized  designations,  there 
alone  is  it  final,  as  that  two  and  two  make  four,  the 
angle  in  a  semicircle  is  a  right  angle.  But  where 
men  are  not  even  agreed  on  the  meaning  of  the  ap- 
pellations, the  case  is  different,  as,  for  instance.  Vir- 
tue is  utility, — try  that.  In  every  different  mind 
there  will  be  a  different  meaning  of  the  words  virtue 
and  utility.  Let  them  state  the  belief  as  they  can, 
but  not  attempt  to  confine  it  in  the  narrow  bounds 
of  logic.  In  spite  of  early  training,  I  never  do  see 
sorites  of  logic  hanging  together,  put  in  regular 
order,  but  I  conclude  that  it  is  going  to  end  in  some 
niaiserie,  in  some  miserable  delusion. 

However  imperfect  the  literature  of  England  was 
at  this  period,  its  spirit  was  never  greater.  It  did 
great  things,  it  built  great  towns,  Birmingham  and 
Liverpool,  Cyclopean  workshops,  and  ships.  There 
was  sincerity  there  at  least.  Eichard  Arkwright, 
for  instance,  who  invented  the  spinning  jennies,  he 


WHITFIELD  175 

was  a  sincere  man.  Not  as  in  France.  Watt,  too, 
was  evidently  sincere  in  that  province  of  activity. 
Another  singular  symptom  of  the  earnestness  of  the 
period  was  that  thing  we  call  Methodism.  It  seems 
to  have  merely  gathered  up  a  number  of  barren  for- 
mulas, with  little  inspiration  in  it  at  first,  as  it  ex- 
hibited itself  in  the  rude  hearts  of  the  common  peo- 
ple. Much  of  its  success  was  due  to  Whitfield,  who 
must  have  been  a  man  with  great  things  in  his  heart. 
He  had  many  dark  contests  with  the  spirit  of  denial 
that  lay  about  him  before  he  called  his  genius  forth 
into  action.  All  the  logic  in  him  was  poor  and  trifling 
compared  to  the  fire  that  was  in  him,  unequrilled 
since  Peter  the  Hermit.  First  he  went  to  Bristol, 
and  preached  to  the  neighboring  coal  miners,  who 
were  all  heathens  yet,  but  he  preached  to  them  till 
he  saw,  as  he  tells  us,  "  their  black  cheeks  seamed 
with  white  tears."  He  came  to  Scotland,  and  got 
money  there  to  convert  the  heathen.  This  was  a 
great  thing  to  do,  considering  the  hard,  thrifty,  cold 
character  of  the  nation.  He  came  to  Glasgow  and 
preached,  and  talked  about  the  Indians  and  their 
perishing  state  ;  would  they  hesitate  to  contribute 
of  their  goods  to  rescue  this  poor  joeople  ?  And  thus 
he  warmed  the  icy  people  into  a  flame,  insomuch 
that,  not  having  money  enough  by  them,  they  ran 
home  for  more,  and  brought  even  blankets,  farm 
stuff,  hams,  etc.,  to  the  church,  and  piled  them  in  a 
heap  there  !    This  was  a  remarkable  fact,  whether  it 


176  DRYDEN   AND   ADDISON 

were  the  work  of  a  good  spirit,  or  of  the  devil.  It 
is  wonderful  that  it  did  not  strike  Hume  more  when 
he  heard  Whitfield  on  the  Calton  Hill. 

When  we  look  at  the  literature  of  the  times,  we 
see  little  of  that  spirit  which  is  to  be  sought  for  in 
the  steam  engines.  We  have  no  time  to  mention 
Dryden,  a  great  poet  put  down  in  the  worst  of 
times,  and  thus  a  formalist ;  a  man  whose  soul  was 
no  longer  in  contact  with  anything  he  got  to  deline- 
ate ;  for  ever  thinking  of  the  effect  he  was  to  pro- 
duce on  the  court,  and  for  this  end  he  adopted 
French  plays  as  the  model  of  his  own.  He,  I  say, 
became  a  formalist,  instead  of  quietly  and  silently 
delineating  the  thought  that  was  Jn  him.  But 
Dryden  must  not  be  censured  for  it  ;  his  i^overty 
was  the  cause,  not  his  will.  He  changed  to  be  a 
Roman  Catholic  at  last.  A  man  of  immense  in- 
tellect ;  it  is  displayed  in  his  translation,  for  ex- 
ample, of  the  jEneid,  which  contains  many  beauti- 
ful and  sounding  things. 

In  Queen  Anne's  time,  after  that  most  disgrace- 
ful class  of  people — King  Charles'  people — had 
passed  away,  there  appeared  the  milder  kind  of  un- 
belief. Complete  formalism  is  the  characteristic  of 
Queen  Anne's  reign.  But,  amid  all  this,  it  is 
strange  how  many  beautiful  indications  there  are  of 
better  things,  how  many  truths  were  said.  Addison 
was  a  mere  lay  preacher,  completely  bound  up  in 
formalism,  but  he  did  get  to  say  many  a  true  thing, 


STEELE,    SWIFT  177 

in  his  generation  ;  an  instance  of  one  formal  man 
doino-  o-reat  tliin2:s.  Steele  bad  infinitely  more 
naivete,  but  be  ^yas  only  a  fellow-soldier  of  Addison, 
to  wbom  be  subordinated  bimself  more  tban  was 
necessary.  It  is  a  cold  vote  in  Addison's  favor  tbat 
one  gives. 

By  far  tbe  greatest  man  of  tbat  time,  I  tbinli,  was 
Jonathan  Swift  :  Dean  Swift,  a  man  entirely  de- 
prived of  bis  natural  nourishment,  but  of  great 
robustness  ;  of  genuine  Saxon  mind,  not  without  a 
feeling  of  reverence,  though,  from  circumstances,  it 
did  not  awaken  in  him,  for  he  got  unhappily,  at  the 
outset,  into  tbe  Church,  not  having  any  vocation  for 
it.  It  is  curio  Qi?  to  see  him  arranging,  as  it  were,  a 
little  religion  to  bimself.  Some  man  found  him  one 
day  giving  prayers  to  bis  servants  in  a  kind  of 
secret  manner,  which  be  did,  it  seems,  every  morn- 
ing, for  he  was  determined,  at  any  rate,  to  get  out 
of  cant ;  but  he  was  a  kind  of  cultivated  heathen, 
no  Christianity  in  him.  He  saw  bimself  in  a  world 
of  confusion  and  falsehood.  No  eyes  were  clearer 
to  see  into  it  than  bis.  He  was  great  from  being  of 
acrid  temperament  :  painfully  sharp  nerves  in  body 
as  well  as  soul,  for  be  was  constantly  ailing,  and  bis 
mind,  at  tbe  same  time,  was  soured  with  indignation 
at  what  he  saw  around  him.  He  took  up  therefore, 
what  was  fittest  for  him,  namelj',  sarcasm,  and  be 
carried  it  quite  to  an  epic  j)itch.  There  is  some- 
thing great  and  fearful  in  bis  irony,  for  it  is  not 
13 


178 


always  used  for  effect,  or  designedly  to  depreciate. 
There  seems  often  to  be  a  sympathy  in  it  with  the 
thing  he  satirizes ;  occasionally  it  was  even  impos- 
sible for  him  so  to  laugh  at  any  object  without  a 
sympathy  with  it,  a  sort  of  love  for  it  ;  the  same 
love  as  Cervantes  universally  shows  for  his  own 
objects  of  merit.  In  his  conduct,  there  is  much 
that  is  sad  and  tragic,  highly  blameable  ;  but  I  can- 
not credit  all  that  is  said  of  his  cruel  unfeeling  dis- 
sipation. There  are  many  circumstances  to  show 
that  by  nature  he  was  one  of  the  truest  of  men,  of 
great  pity  for  his  fellow-men.  For  example,  we 
read  that  he  set  up  banks  for  the  poor  Irish  in  his 
neighborhood,  and  required  nothing  of  them  but 
that  they  should  keep  their  word  with  him,  when 
they  came  to  borrow.  "Take  your  own  time,"  he 
said,  "  but  don't  come  back  if  you  fail  to  keep  the 
time  you  tell  me."  And  if  they  had  failed,  he  would 
tell  them,  "Come  no  more  to  me,  if  you  have  not  so 
much  method  as  to  keep  your  time ;  if  you  cannot 
keep  your  word,  what  are  you  fit  for?"  All  this 
proves  him  to  have  been  a  man  of  much  affection, 
but  too  impatient  of  others'  infirmities.  But  none 
of  us  can  have  any  idea  of  the  bitter  misery  which 
lay  in  him  ;  given  up  to  ambition,  confusion,  and 
discontent.  He  fell  into  fatalism  at  last,  and  mad- 
ness, that  was  the  end  of  it.  The  death  of  Swift 
was  one  of  the  awfullest  •  he  knew  his  madness  to 
be  coming.     A  little  befo.rp  his  death  he  saw  a  tree 


STERNE,    POPE  179 

withered  at  the  top,  and  he  said  that,  **Hke  that 
tree,  he,  too,  was  dying  at  the  top."  He  was  well 
called  by  Johnson  a  driveller  and  a  show,  a  stern 
lesson  to  ambitious  people. 

Another  man  of  much  the  same  way  of  thinking, 
and  very  well  deserving  notice,  was  Laurence  Sterne. 
In  him  also  there  was  a  great  quantity  of  good 
struggling  through  the  superficial  evil.  He  terribly 
failed  in  the  dischai-ge  of  his  duties,  still,  we  must 
admire  in  him  that  sportive  kind  of  geniality  and 
affection,  still  a  son  of  our  common  mother,  not 
cased  up  in  buckram  formulas  as  the  other  writers 
were,  clinging  to  forms,  and  not  touching  realities. 
And,  much  as  has  been  said  against  him,  we  cannot 
help  feeling  his  immense  love  for  things  around 
him  ;  so  that  we  may  say  of  him,  as  of  Magdalen, 
*'  much  is  forgiven  him,  because  he  loved  much." 
A  good  simple  being  after  all. 

I  have  nothing  at  all,  in  these  limits,  to  say  of 
Pope.  It  is  no  use  to  decide  the  disputed  question 
as  to  whether  he  were  a  poet  or  not,  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  term  ;  in  any  case,  his  was  one  of  the 
finest  heads  ever  known,  full  of  deep  sayings,  ut- 
tered in  the  shape  of  couplets — rhymed  couplets. 

The  two  persons  who  exercised  the  most  remark- 
able influences  upon  things  during  the  eighteenth 
century  were,  unquestionabty,  Samuel  Johnson  and 
David  Hume  :  two  summits  of  a  great  set  of  in- 
fluences, two  opposite  poles  of  it — the  one  a  puller 


180  joimsoN 

down  of  magnificent,  far-reaching  thoughts  ;  the 
other,  most  excellent,  serious,  and  a  great  conserva- 
tive. 

Samuel  Johnson,  in  some  respects,  stood  entirely 
alone  in  Europe.  In  those  years  there  was  no  one 
in  Europe  like  him.  For  example,  the  defenders  of 
what  existed  in  France  were  men  who  did  nothing 
but  mischief  by  their  falsehoods  and  insincerity  of 
all  kinds. 

Johnson  was  a  large-minded  man,  an  entirely  sin- 
cere and  honest  man.  Whatever  may  be  our  differ- 
ences of  opinion  is  here  entirely  insignificant ;  he 
must  inevitably  be  regarded  as  the  brother  of  all 
honest  men.  One  who  held  this  truth  among  the 
insincerities  that  lay  around  him,  that,  after  all, 
"life  was  true  yet,"  and  he  was  a  man  to  hold  by 
that  truth,  and  cling  to  it  in  the  general  shipwreck 
on  the  sea  of  Eternity.  All  would  be  over  with 
him  without  it  ;  he  knew  that,  and  acted  up  to  it. 
Hardly  has  any  man  ever  influenced  move  an  exist- 
ing state  of  things.  He  produced  in  Eugland  that 
resistance  to  the  French  Kevolution,  commonly 
called  Pittism,  by  demonstrating  its  necessity  in 
the  most  perfect  sincerity  of  heart.  A  man  whose 
life  was,  in  the  highest  degree,  miserable  ;  hardly 
any  man,  not  even  Swift,  suffered  so  much  as  John- 
son in  the  first  part  of  his  life.  He  was  a  "  much  en- 
during man  !  "  A  man  of  a  most  unhealthy  body, 
for  ever  sick  and  ailing,     When  he  was  at  Oxford, 


HIS   HARDSHIPS   AND   HEROISM  181 

a  sizar  there,  so  great  was  Lis  poverty  that  he  had 
no  shoes  to  his  feet,  and  used  to  walk  about  putting 
bis  bare  feet  into  the  mud  of  the  streets.  A  chari- 
table man,  seeing  this,  put  a  pair  of  shoes  at  his 
door  for  him,  but  this  irritated  Johnson  as  a  reflec- 
tion on  his  poverty,  and  he  flung  them  oat  of  win- 
dow, rather  than  use  them.  Then  he  fell  sick  over 
and  over  again.  Those  about  him  regarded  him  as 
a  man  that  had  gone  mad,  and  was  more  fit  for  Bed- 
lam than  anything  else. 

After  he  left  Oxford,  he  tried  to  be  a  schoolmas- 
ter, but,  failing  in  that,  came  to  London  to  try  his 
fortune  there.  There  he  lived  on  fourpence  a  day, 
sometimes  having  no  home,  and  reduced  to  sleep  on 
bulks  and  steps,  at  other  times  to  stay  in  cellars. 
And  I  must  regard  him  as  one  of  the  greatest  heroes, 
since  he  was  able  to  keep  himself  erect  amid  all  that 
distress  :  he  shook  it  from  him  as  the  lion  shakes 
the  dewdrops  from  his  mane  !  He  had  no  notion  of 
becoming  a  great  character  at  all,  he  only  tried  not 
to  be  killed  with  starvation  !  And  though  it  is 
mournful  to  think  that  a  man  of  the  greatest  heart 
should  have  suffered  so  much,  we  must  consider  that 
this  suffering  produced  that  enterprise  in  him,  and 
at  last  he  did  get  something  to  do  ;  his  object  was 
not  to  go  about  seeking  to  know  the  reasons  of 
things  in  a  world  where  there  is  much  to  be  done, 
little  to  be  known  ;  for  the  great  thing,  above  all 
others,  is  what  a  man  can  do  in  this  wgiid  ! 


182  JOHNSON   AND   BOSWELL 

There  is  not  such  a  cheering  spectacle  in  the 
eighteenth  century  anywhere  as  Samuel  Johnson. 
He  contrived  to  be  devout  in  it,  he  had  a  belief  and 
held  by  it ;  a  genuine  inspired  man.  And  it  is  a 
great  thing  to  think  that  Johnson  had  one  who  could 
appreciate  him ;  anyone  must  love  poor  Boswell, 
who  (not  fixing  his  eyes  on  the  vain  and  stupid 
things  in  "Bozzy's"  character)  remarks  that  beau- 
tiful reverence  and  attachment  he  had  for  Johnson, 
putting  them  side  by  side,  this  great  mass  of  a 
plebeian  and  this  other  conceited  Scotch  character  : 
full  of  the  absurd  pretensions  of  my  country's  gen- 
tlemen, noting  down  and  treasuring  with  reverence 
the  sayings  and  anecdotes  of  this  great,  shaggy, 
dusty  pedagogue.  And  really,  he  has  made  of  these 
things  a  book,  which  is  a  most  striking  book,  and 
likely  to  survive  long  after  him  ;  a  kind  of  epic 
poem,  by  which  Johnson  must  long  continue  in  the 
first  ranks  of  English  biography. 

But  we  must  now  come  to  a  very  different  per- 
sonage, Hume.  Hume  was  born  in  the  same  year 
with  Johnson,  whom  he  so  little  resembles.  He, 
too,  is  deserving  to  be  looked  at.  Very  nearly  of 
Johnson's  magnitude,  and  quite  as  sincere,  but  of  a 
far  duller  kind  of  sense.  His  eye,  unlike  Johnson's, 
was  not  open  to  faith ;  yet  he  w^as  of  a  noble  per- 
severence,  a  silent  strength,  and  he  showed  it  in 
his  very  complicated  life,  as  it  lay  before  him.  He 
could  not  go  into  commerce,  for  his  habits  as  the 


HUME  183 

son  of  a  gentleman  were  averse  to  it.  Yet  his  pa- 
rents, wishing  him  to  make  money  in  some  way, 
he  was  set  to  various  things,  and  finally  sent  to 
Bristol  to  be  a  merchant.  But,  after  trying  and 
struggling  with  it  for  two  years,  he  found  he  could 
not  go  on,  and  he  felt  a  strong  thirst  to  prosecute 
the  cultivation  of  learning,  so  that  he  abandoned  the 
other  for  that. 

He  tried  to  get  appointed  a  professor  in  the 
University  of  Edinburgh,  but  they  would  not  have 
him,  so  he  retired  to  live  upon  sixty  pounds  a  year 
in  a  small  town  in  Brittan}',  called  La  Fleche,  where 
he  began  writing  books,  and  thus  got  distinguished. 
He  was  not  at  any  time  patronized  by  any  consider- 
able class  of  persons,  though  latterly  he  was  noticed 
by  a  certain  class.  The  rich  people  did  look  after 
him  at  last,  but  a  general  recognition  in  his  day  he 
never  got.  His  chief  work,  the  History  of  England, 
failed  to  get  buyers.  He  bore  it  all  like  a  stoic, 
like  a  heroic,  silent  man  as  he  was,  and  then  pro- 
ceeded calmly  to  the  next  thing  he  had  to  do.  I 
have  heard  old  people,  who  have  remembered  Hume 
well,  speak  of  his  great  good  humor  under  trials, 
the  quiet  strength  of  it,  the  very  converse  in  this  of 
Dr.  Johnson,  whose  coarseness  was  equally  strong 
with  his  heroism.  Then,  as  to  his  methodicalness, 
no  man  ever  had  a  larger  view  than  Hume  ;  he 
always  knows  where  to  begin  and  end.  In  his  his- 
tory he   frequently  rises,  though  a  cold  man  natu- 


184  ROBEETSON 

rally,  into  a  kind  of  epic  height  as  he  proceeds.  His 
description  of  the  Commonwealth,  for  example, 
where  all  is  delineated  as  with  a  crayon  ;  one  sees 
there  his  large  mind,  moreover,  not  without  its 
harmonies.  As  to  his  scepticism,  that  is  perfectly 
transcendental,  working  itself  out  to  the  very  end. 
He  starts  with  Locke's  Essay,  thinking,  as  was  then 
generally  thought,  that  logic  is  the  only  way  to  the 
truth.  He  began  with  this,  and  went  on  ;  in  the 
end  he  exhibited  to  the  world  his  conclusion,  that 
there  was  nothing  at  all  credible  or  demonstrable, 
the  only  thing  certain  to  him  being  that  he  himself 
existed  and  sat  there,  and  that  there  were  some 
species  of  things  in  his  own  brain.  Any  other  man 
to  him  was  only  a  spectrum,  not  a  reality.  Now  it 
was  right  that  this  should  be  published,  for  if  that 
were  all  that  lay  in  scepticism,  the  making  that 
known  was  extremely  beneficial  to  us  ;  he  did  us 
great  service  in  that ;  then  all  would  see  what  was 
in  it,  and  accordingly  would  give  up  the  unprofita- 
ble employment  of  spinning  cobwebs  of  logic  in 
their  brain — no  one  would  go  on  spinning  them 
much  longer. 

Hume,  too,  is  very  remarkable  as  one  of  the  three 
historians  we  have  produced,  for  his  history,  an 
able  work  for  the  time,  shows  far  more  insight  than 
either  Robertson  or  Gibbon.  Robertson  Avas,  in 
fact,  as  Johnson  thinks  him,  a  shallow  man.  In 
his  conversation  with  Boswell  about  him,  we  have 


GIBBON  185 

Johnson  always  contradicting  Robertson  ;  yet  there 
was  a  power  of  arrangement  in  Robertson  :  no  one 
knew  better  where  to  begin  a  story  and  where  to 
stop.  This  was  the  greatest  quaUty  in  him,  that 
and  a  soft  sleek  style.  On  the  whole,  he  was  merely 
a  pohtician,  open  to  the  common  objection  to  all 
the  three,  that  total  want  of  belief  ;  and  worse  in 
Robertson,  a  minister  of  the  Gospel,  preaching,  or 
pretending  to  preach.  A  poor  notion  of  moral 
motives  he  must  have  had  ;  in  his  description  of 
Knox,  for  instance,  he  can  divine  no  better  motive 
for  him  than  a  miserable  hunger,  love  of  plunder, 
and  the  influence  of  money  ;  and  such  was  Hume's 
view  also  !  The  same  is  remarkable  of  Gibbon  in  a 
still  more  contemptible  way — a  greater  historian 
than  Robertson,  but  not  so  great  as  Hume.  With 
all  his  swagger  and  bombast,  no  man  ever  gave  a 
more  futile  account  of  human  things  than  he  has 
done  of  the  decline  and  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  ; 
assigning  no  profound  cause  for  these  phenomena, 
nothing  but  diseased  nerves,  and  all  sorts  of  miser- 
able motives,  to  the  actors  in  them. 

So  that  the  world  seemed  then  to  j^resent  one 
huge  imbroglio  of  quackery,  and  men  of  nobleness 
could  only  despise  and  sneer  at  it. 

On  Friday  next  (not  Monday)  we  shall  resume 
this  discussion,  and  shall  remark  the  downfall  and 
consummation  of  scepticism  ;  for,  thank  God,  its 
time  was  short. 


LECTURE    XI. 

Friday,  June  8th 

THIRD  FER10T>— Continued 

Consummation     of     Scepticism  —  Wertherism  —  The 
French  Revolution. 

We  traced  the  history  of  scepticism  in  literature  in 
our  last  lecture  down  to  David  Hume,  the  greatest 
of  all  the  writers  of  his  time,  and  in  some  respects 
the  worthiest.  To-day  we  shall  delineate  the  con- 
summation of  scepticism. 

It  is  very  strange  to  look  at  scepticism  in  con- 
trast with  a  thing  that  preceded  it ;  to  contrast,  for 
example,  David  Hume  with  Dante,  two  characters 
distant  by  five  centuries  from  one  another,  two  of 
the  greatest  minds  in  their  respective  departments 
(the  mind  of  both  was  to  do  the  best  that  could  be 
done  in  their  existing  circumstances)  ;  to  contrast 
them,  I  say,  and  see  what  Dante  made  of  it  and 
what  Hume  made  of  it. 

Dante  saw  a  solemn  law  in  the  universe,  pointing 
out  his  destiny  with  an  awful  and  beautiful  cer- 
tainty, and  he  held  to  it.     Hume  could  see  nothing 


SCEPTICISM  187 

in  the  universe  but  confusion,  and  he  was  certain 
of  nothing  but  his  own  existence  ;  j^et  he  had  in- 
stincts which  were  infinitely  more  true  than  the 
logical  part  of  him,  and  so  he  kept  himself  quiet 
in  the  middle  of  it  all,  and  did  no  harm  to  anyone ; 
for  as  to  his  books,  he  believed  that  they  were  true, 
and  therefore  to  publish  them  he  was  bound — bound 
to  do  what  seemed  right  to  him.  He  had  no  other 
business  for  his  intellect  than  this,  and,  moreover, 
as  I  have  observed,  in  publishing  them  he  did  a 
useful  service  for  humanity. 

But  scepticism,  however  much  called  for  at  that 
time,  particularly  in  France,  cannot  be  considered 
other  than  a  disease  of  the  mind ;  a  fatal  condition 
to  be  in,  it  seems  to  me,  or  at  best  useful  only  as  a 
means  to  get  at  knowledge.  For  the  thing  is,  not 
to  find  out  what  is  not  true,  but  what  is  true.  Surely 
that  is  the  real  design  of  man's  intelligence  !  But  as 
to  this  overspreading  our  whole  mind  with  logic,  it 
was  altogether  a  false  and  unwarranted  attempt, 
considering  logic  as  the  only  means  to  attain  to 
truth,  and  that  things  did  not  exist  at  all  except 
someone  stood  up  and  could  mark  the  place  that 
they  occupied  in  the  world  ;  forgetting  that  it  is 
always  great  things  that  do  not  speak  at  all.  If  a 
truth  must  not  be  believed  except  demonstrable  by 
logic,  we  had  better  go   away  without  it  altogether. 

And  it  was  not  only  the  disbelievers  in  religion 
that  were  sceptic  at  that  time  ;  but  the  whole  sys- 


188  THEORIES 

tern  of  mind  was  sceptic.  The  defenders  of  Chris- 
tianity were  sceptic,  too,  for  ever  trying  to  prove 
the  truth  of  their  doctrines  by  logical  evidences. 
What  is  the  use  of  attempting  to  prove  motion  ? 
The  philosopher  was  right  who  got  up  and  began 
to  walk  instead.  So  with  religion.  It  may  seem  a 
plausible,  but  it  is  a  vain  attempt  to  demonstrate  by 
logical  arguments  what  must  be  always  unspeakable. 
But  this  habit  had  in  the  eighteenth  century  over- 
run all  the  provinces  of  thought.  Nothiug  but  that 
was  serviceable  or  useful  in  the  eyes  of  that  genera- 
tion. An  indication  of  an  unhealthy  mind,  that 
system  of  trying  to  make  out  a  theory  on  every  sub- 
ject. It  is  good,  doubtless,  that  there  should  al- 
ways be  some  theory  formed,  with  a  view  to  the  ap- 
prehension of  a  subject,  but  as  for  any  other  view  it 
is  impossible.  For  example,  there  is  a  kind  of 
theory  in  what  we  have  been  following  out — what 
we  call  the  history  of  European  culture  ;  we  use  it 
for  facility  of  arrangement.  But  there  is  a  wide 
difference  between  a  theory  of  this  kind  and  a 
theory  by  which  we  profess  to  account  for  it,  and 
give  the  reasons  for  its  being  there  at  alL 

Accordingly,  there  is  only  one  theory  (as  I  ob- 
served at  the  beginning  of  these  lectures)  which 
has  been  most  triumphant — that  of  the  planets. 
On  no  other  subject  has  any  other  theory  succeeded 
so  far  ;  yet  even  that  is  not  perfect.  The  astrono- 
mer knows  one  or  two  planets,  we  may  say  ;  but  he 


limitatiojS^s  of  knowledge        189 

does  not  know  ivJiat  they  are,  where  they  are  going, 
or  whether  the  sohir  system  is  not  itself  drawn  into 
a  hirger  system  of  the  kind.  Iq  short,  with  every 
theory  the  man  who  knows  something  about  it 
knows  mainl}'  this — that  there  is  much  uncertainty 
in  it,  great  darkness  about  it,  extending  down  to 
infinite  deeps  ;  in  a  w^ord,  that  he  does  not  know 
what  it  is.  Let  him  take  the  stone,  for  example — 
the  pebble  that  lies  under  his  feet.  He  knows  that 
it  is  a  stone,  broken  out  of  rocks  old  as  the  creation  ; 
but  what  that  pebble  is  he  knows  not  ;  he  knows 
nothing  at  all  about  that. 

This  system  of  making  a  theory  about  everything 
was  what  we  can  call  an  enchanted  state  of  mind. 
That  man  should  be  misled  ;  that  he  should  be  de- 
prived of  knowing  the  truth,  that  this  world  is  a 
reality,  and  not  a  huge,  confused  hypothesis  ;  that 
he  should  be  deprived  of  this  by  the  very  faculties 
given  him  to  understand  it,  I  can  call  by  no  other 
name  than  enchantment.  Everything  was  placed 
upon  the  single  table  of  logic  ;  one  could  hardly  go 
anywhere  without  meeting  some  pretentious  theoiy 
or  other.  Even  the  very  centre  of  all  was  brought 
to  that  level — morals.  There  was  a  theory  of  virtue 
and  vice  ;  duty  and  the  contrarj^  of  that.  This  will 
come  to  be  thought  one  day  an  extraordinary  sort  of 
procedure.  When  I  think  of  this,  it  seems  to  me 
more  and  more  that  morality  is  the  very  centre  of 
the  existence  of  man  :  that  there  is  nothino:  for  a  man 


190  MORAL   SENSE 

but  that  which  it  is  his  duty  to  do.  It  is  the  life, 
the  harmonious  existence  of  any  man — the  good  that 
is  in  him  !  No  man  can  know  how  to  account  for  it ; 
it  is  the  very  essence  and  existence  of  himself.  How- 
ever, in  the  last  century  they  had  a  theory  for  that 
too,  by  w4]ich  it  was  defined  to  consist  in  what  they 
called  sympathies,  the  necessary  attraction  subsisting 
between  the  inclination  and  the  thing  to  be  done ! 
For  all  spiritual  things  were  to  be  deduced  from 
something  visible  and  material,  and  thus  our  mo- 
ralit}''  became  reduced  to  our  sympathies  for  others 
and  other  things. 

This  was  the  doctrine  of  Adam  Smith  and  of  others 
older  than  Smith,  and  by  him  this  habit  of  morality 
had  been  termed  moral  sense,  the  natural  relish  for 
certain  actions  ;  a  sort  of  palate,  by  the  taste  of  which 
the  nature  of  anything  might  be  determined.  Hume 
considered  virtue  to  be  the  same  as  expediency, 
profit ;  that  all  useful  things  were  virtues  ;  that  people 
in  old  times  found  the  utility  of  the  thing,  and  met, 
or  whether  they  met  not,  in  any  case  agreed  that 
for  the  sake  of  keeping  society  together,  they  would 
patronize  such  things  as  were  useful  to  one  another, 
and  consecrate  them  by  some  strong  sanction,  and 
that  was  the  origin  of  virtue.  The  most  melancholy 
theory  ever  propounded.  In  short,  it  was  the  highest 
exhibition  of  scepticism — that  total  denial  of  every- 
thing not  material,  not  demonstrable  by  logic.  The 
result  was  to  convince  man  that  he  was  not  of  Heaven 


MATERIALISM  191 

— the  paltriest  conclusion.  Tell  that  to  the  savage, 
the  red  man  of  the  forest  ;  tell  him  that  he  is  not  of 
Heaven,  not  of  God,  but  a  mere  thing  of  matter,  and 
he  will  spurn  you  in  his  indignation  at  the  base  con- 
clusion. 

Besides  morality,  everything  else  was  in  the  same 
state ;  all  things  showed  what  an  unhealthy,  poor 
thing  the  world  had  become.  All  was  brought  down 
to  a  system  of  cause  and  effect  ;  of  one  thing  push- 
ing another  thing  on  by  certain  laws  of  physics, 
gravitation,  a  visible,  material  thing  of  shoving.  A 
dim,  huge,  immeasurable  steam  engine  they  had 
made  of  this  world,  and,  as  Jean  Paul  says,  "  Heaven 
became  a  gas,  God  a  force,  the  second  world  a 
grave."  We  cannot  understand  how  this  delusion 
could  have  become  so  general ;  all  men  thinking  in 
so  deplorable  a  manner,  and  looking  down  in  con- 
tempt on  those  who  had  gone  before  them.  But  it 
was  working  itself  out  toward  issues  beneficial  for 
us  all.  Voltaire  and  Rousseau  became,  in  the  end, 
triumphant  over  everything  ;  destroying,  but  sub- 
stituting nothing ;  attacking  Jesuitism,  and  imag- 
ining they  were  doing  good  by  it ;  cutting  down, 
burning  up,  because  they  were  applauded  for  it. 
They  had  always  at  their  back  people  to  cry  out, 
"  Well  done  !  "  But  these  having  passed  away,  and 
error  having  once  been  admitted  to  be  erroneous, 
and  the  world  everywhere  reduced  by  them  to  that 
dire  condition,  I  say  that  in  that  huge  universe,  be- 


192  WERTHER 

come  one  vast  steam  engine  as  it  were,  the  new  gen- 
eration that  followed  must  inevitably  have  found 
their  position  very  difficult,  and  that  it  was  perfectly 
insupportable  for  them  to  be  doomed  to  live  in  such 
a  place  of  falsehood  and  chimera.  And  that  was, 
in  fact,  the  case  with  them,  and  it  led  to  the  second 
great  phenomenon  we  have  to  notice,  the  introduc- 
tion of  Wertherism. 

Let  us  Jarst  look  at  the  very  centre  of  it,  at  Werther 
himself.  "  Werther  "  is  the  first  book  in  which  there 
is  any  decided  proof  of  its  existence  in  the  European 
mind.  "Werther"  was  written  b}^  Goethe  in  1775. 
It  was  a  time  of  a  haggard  condition,  no  genuine 
hope  in  men's  minds.  All  outwards  was  false  :  the 
last  war,  for  example,  the  Seven  Years'  War,  the 
most  absurd  of  wars,  undertaken  on  no  public  prin- 
ciple, a  contest  between  France  and  Germany,  from 
Frederick  the  Great  wanting  to  have  Silesia,  and 
Louis  XV.  wanting  to  give  Madame  de  Pompadour 
some  influence  in  the  affairs  of  Europe — and  50,000 
men  were  shot  for  that  purj^ose  !  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances Goethe,  then  of  the  age  of  twenty- five, 
wrote  this  work  at  Frankfort-on-Maine.  A  man  of 
the  liveliest  imagination,  aiid  one  who  participated 
deeply  in  all  the  influences  then  going  on,  not  alto- 
gether brought  up  in  scepticism,  but,  in  fact,  very 
well  acquainted  with  religious  people  from  his  youth, 
and,  among  them,  with  a  lady  named  the  Fraiilein 
von  Klettenberg,  a  follower  of  Zinzendorf,  whom  he 


WERTHERISM  193 

always  highly  esteemed,  and  whom  he  is  said  to  have 
afterward  described  as  the  saintly  lady  in  "  Wilhelm 
Meister."  But,  in  fact,  he  studied  all  sorts  of  things, 
and  this  among  the  rest.  And  when  at  last  he  grew 
into  manhood  and  looked  around  him  on  what  was 
passing,  he  was  filled  with  unspeakable  sadness,  felt 
himself,  as  it  w^ere,  flung  back  on  himself,  no  sym- 
pathies in  anj^oue  with  his  feelings,  his  aspirations 
treated  as  chimeras  which  could  not  realize  them- 
selves at  all ;  and  he  brooded  with  silence  long  over 
this.  He  has  described  it  all  in  a  clear  manner,  a 
beautiful,  soft  manner.  He  was  destined  for  a  pro- 
fession, to  be  a  lawyer,  and  though  much  disinclined 
for  it  he  went  accordingly  to  the  University  of  Leip- 
sic.  Here  he  spent  some  time,  till  finally  one  of  the 
scholars,  who  had  been  violently  attached  to  the 
bride  of  another  man,  put  an  end  to  himself  in  de- 
spair. This  gave  him  the  idea  of  Werther.  The 
sense  of  his  own  dark  state  and  that  of  all  others 
rushed  upon  him  now  more  forcibly  than  ever,  and  it 
produced  this  book,  the  voice  of  what  all  men  wanted 
to  speak  at  that  time,  of  what  oppressed  the  heads 
of  all,  and  of  this  young  man  in  particular.  It  ac- 
cordingly soon  became  generally  read  ;  it  was  trans- 
lated into  English  among  other  languages.  Sixty 
years  ago  young  ladies  here  were  never  without  all 
sorts  of  sketches  on  articles  used  at  their  toilettes, 
of  Charlotte  and  Werther,  and  so  on.  Goethe  him- 
self was  in  possession  of  tea  -  cups  made  in  China 
11 


194  PHILOSOPHY    OF   WERTHER 

ornamented  with  pictures  of  Charlotte.  I  suppose 
that  the  story  itself  is  known  to  every  one  of  you,  yet 
our  English  version  does  no  justice  to  the  work.  It 
was  made,  I  believe,  from  a  French  translation,  and 
it  is  altogether  unlike  the  original.  There  is  often 
a  sharp  tone,  a  redeeming  turn  of  bitter  satire  in  it, 
but  it  has  become  in  general  wearisome  now  to  young 
people.  It  was  not  so  in  those  times.  Werther  we 
may  take  to  have  been  Goethe's  own  character,  an 
earnest  man,  of  deep  affections,  forever  meditating 
on  the  phenomena  of  this  world,  and  obtaining  no 
solution,  till  at  last  he  goes  into  sentimentality  and 
tries  that  among  other  influences.  By  degrees  he 
gets  more  and  more  desperate  at  his  imprisonment, 
rages  more  and  more  against  the  evils  around  him, 
and  at  length  blows  his  brains  out,  and  ends  the  novel 
in  that  way.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  thing 
which  immediately  afterward  was  going  on  through 
all  Europe.  Only  till  lately  this  country  knew  any- 
thing else,  the  thing  which  was  not  that  was  accounted 
no  better  than  confusion  and  delusion.  And  they 
were  right.  If  the  world  were  realty  no  better  than 
what  Goethe  imagined  it  to  be  there  was  nothing  for 
it  but  suicide.  If  it  had  nothing  to  support  itself 
upon  but  these  poor  sentimentalities,  view-huntings, 
trivialities,  this  world  was  really  not  fit  to  live  in. 
But  in  the  end  the  conviction  that  his  theory  of  the 
world  was  wrong  came  to  Goethe  himself,  greatly  to 
his  own  profit,  greatly  to  the  world's  profit. 


195 

However,  this  new  phenomenon  flamed  up,  and 
next  produced  "The  Kobbers,"  five  years  later  than 
"  Werther,"  a  play  by  Schiller  full  of  all  sorts  of  wild 
things.  The  Robber  is  a  student  at  college,  kej)t  by 
his  brother  from  his  inheritance,  forever  moralizing 
on  the  rule  of  life,  and  the  conclusion  he  comes  to 
is,  that  life  is  one  huge  Bedlam,  with  no  rule  at  all, 
and  that  a  brave  man  can  do  nothing  with  it  but  re- 
volt against  it.  So  he  becomes  a  robbei',  rages  and 
storms  continually  to  the  end  of  the  piece,  and  finally 
kills  himself,  or  does  as  good.  The  same  sort  of 
man  as  Werther,  but  more  remarkable  for  that  rage 
against  the  world,  and  the  determination  to  alter  it. 
Goethe  says  that  it  quite  shocked  him,  this  play  of 
Schiller's. 

There  was  a  similar  phase  in  the  literature  of  our 
own  country,  if  we  would  look  at  it  ;  I  allude  to  the 
works  of  Byron.  This  poet  is  full  of  indignant  rep- 
robation for  the  whole  universe,  of  rage  and  scowl 
against  it,  as  a  place  not  worthy  that  a  generous 
man  should  live  in  it.  He  seems  to  have  been  a 
compound  of  the  Robber  and  Werther  put  together  ; 
his  poems  have  evoked  more  response  than  any  other 
phase  of  Wertherism.  This  sentimentalism  was  the 
ultimatum  of  scepticism,  therefore  we  are  bound  to 
welcome  it  however  absurd  it  may  be,  for  it  cannot 
be  true,  that  theory  of  the  universe  ;  if  it  were, 
there  would  be  no  other  conclusion  to  come  to  than 
that  of  Werther  :  to  kill  one's  self  namely — no  other 


196  BYRON'S   POEMS 

way  for  it  than  by  one  general  simultaneous  suicide  ; 
for  all  mankind  to  put  an  end  to  it,  to  return  to  the 
bosom  of  their  fathers  with  a  sort  of  dumb  protest 
against  it.  There  was,  therefore,  a  deep  sincerity  in 
this  sentimentalism  ;  not  a  right  kind  of  sincerity 
perhaps,  but  still  a  struggling  toward  it.  AVe  are 
forced  to  observe  how  like  all  this  was  to  the  scep- 
tical time  of  Rome.  That  sj^irit  raging  there,  in 
Byron  and  Schiller,  and  in  Goethe's  "  Werther," 
trying  its  utmost  to  j)roduce  a  loud  noise,  thinking 
it  impossible  for  anything  to  be  quiet  and  stormy 
too  !  So  in  Rome  we  have  in  her  sceptical  times 
the  tragedies  of  Seneca,  full  of  nothing  but  tumult- 
uous rage  and  storm,  ending  in  suicide,  too,  bat  not 
unreasonably  either.  There  was  no  way  for  men 
but  it. 

But  we  must  now  pay  attention  to  another  thing 
which  followed  closely  on  Wertherism  :  another 
book  of  Goethe's,  published  the  year  after  "The 
Robbers,"  "Goetz  von  Berlichingen,"  the  subject  of 
which  was  an  old  German  baron  of  the  time  of  Max- 
imilian, grandfather  to  Charles  V.,  who  revoked  the 
law  of  duel.  Goetz,  for  contravening  his  ordinance 
in  this,  lost  his  right  hand.  A  machine  was  made 
and  fitted  to  his  arm,  whence  he  was  called  "iron 
hand."  He  was  a  real  character,  and  has  left 
memoirs  of  himself.  This  curious  feature  joined  it- 
self alongside  of  "Werther"  and  " The  Robbers," 
this  delineation  of  a  wild,  fierce  time,  not  as  being 


197 


the  sketch  of  what  a  rude,  barbarous  man  would 
appear  in  the  eves  of  a  philosophical  man  of  civil- 
ized times,  but  with  a  sort  of  natural  regret  at  the 
hard  existence  of  Goetz,  and  a  genuine  esteem  for 
his  man  fulness  and  courage !  By  this  new  work 
Goethe  began  his  life  again  ;  he  had  struck  again 
the  chord  of  his  own  heart ;  of  all  hearts.  Walter 
Scott  took  it  up  here,  too,  and  others.  But  the 
charm  there  is  in  Goethe's  "  Goetz  "  is  unattainable 
by  any  other  writer.  In  Scott  it  was  very  good, 
but  by  no  means  so  good  as  in  "  Goetz."  It  was  the 
beginning  of  a  happier  turn  to  the  appreciation  of 
something  genuine,  as  we  shall  notice  in  our  next 
lecture.  This  new  work,  however,  had  come  in  the 
reign  of  quacks  and  dupes,  when  a  good  man  was  a 
kind  of  alien,  unable  to  do  the  good  that  lay  in  him. 
"We  must  accept  this  with  a  kind  of  cheerfulness  ;  a 
system  of  thought,  whether  of  belief  or  no  belief, 
which  results  in  suicide,  must  come  to  an  end — that 
custom  of  judging  what  was  right  and  proper  in  a 
man  by  the  cut  of  his  clothes,  or  by  anything  at  all 
but  the  heart  God  had  placed  in  him. 

We  come  now,  therefore,  to  the  last  act  of  scep- 
ticism, which  was  to  sweep  it  all  away.  It  was  to  go 
on  but  little  longer  ;  it  was  nearly  out  here  too,  but 
more  so  in  France  than  elsewhere  ;  still,  a  clear 
light  enables  us  to  trace  its  jDath.  We  may  say  that 
scepticism  then  had  consummated  itself.  These 
sceptical  influences  had  principally  developed  them- 


198  LAST   ACT   OF   SCEPTICISM 

selves  on  books.  If  they  had  done  nothing  worse, 
it  would  have  been  of  very  trifling  moment.  But  it 
is  the  infallible  result  of  scepticism  that  it  produces 
not  only  bad  unsound  thought,  but  bad  unsound 
action  too.  When  the  mind  of  man  is  sick,  how 
shall  anything  about  him  be  healthy  ?  His  conduct, 
too,  is  therefore  sick,  which  indeed  he  partly  feels 
is  false  himself,  for  there  is  no  reality  in  it.  The 
things,  accordingly,  that  went  on  then  reduce  them- 
selves to  two ;  first,  respect  for  the  opinion  of  other 
people  ;  secondly,  sentimentalism.  The  first  of 
these  is  in  itself  very  right,  but  to  do  nothing  at  all 
without  first  consulting  others  as  to  whether  it  be 
moral  or  not,  is  exceedingly  blamable.  We  say  of 
such  a  man,  "  all  is  over  with  that  man  if  he  is  not 
able  to  be  moral  without  help."  What  is  the  use  of 
always  asking  about  morality  ?  He  has  a  certain 
light  given  to  himself  to  walk  by,  yet  he  must  have 
a  great  deal  of  talk  with  others  about  it,  as  if  the 
world  could  keep  him  right  by  watching  over  him. 
The  w^orld  will  never  keep  him  right,  will  never 
prevent  him,  when  unseen,  from  breaking  into  doors 
and  stealing. 

The  next  thing,  sentimentalism,  plays  a  great  part 
in  the  latter  periods  of  scepticism.  It  had  become 
necessary ;  it  endeavored  to  trace  out  pleasure  at 
least  in  a  thing  where  there  was  nothing  better. 
The  writers  of  this  class  were  Eousseau,  Diderot, 
and  the  rest  of  their  school.     Diderot  was  not  at  all 


SENTIMENTALISM  199 

an  exemplary  man,  far  from  that :  one  Las  no  busi- 
ness to  call  liim  virtuous  at  all  ;  yet  in  all  Lis  books 
tLere  is  an  endless  tall?  about  tLe  "pleasures  of 
virtue,"  and  "Low  miserable  tLe  vicious  must  be." 
Quite  as  witL  Seneca.  TLen  tLe  work  tLey  made 
about  Dilettantism,  tLe  beauties  of  art ;  an  ever- 
lasting tLeme  in  tLat  day. 

In  one  word,  tLere  was  tLen  an  universal  mani- 
festation of  consciousness  ;  every  one  conscious  of 
sometLing  beautiful  in  Limself.  And  tLat  we  re- 
mark in  WertLer,  among  otliers,  tLat  fine  eye,  tLe 
love  of  graceful  tLiugs,  wLicL  Le  knows  Le  Las,  and 
tLinks  very  desirable  tLat  otLer  men  sLould  know  it 
too.  It  is  really  egotism  ;  just  like  a  man  taking 
out  tLe  most  precious  tLings  Le  Las  in  Lis  Louse, 
and  Langiug  tLem  on  tLe  front  wall  of  it,  tLat  otLers 
may  see  tLem  ;  Le  Limself  can  derive  no  benefit 
from  tLem  at  all  tLe  wLile  tLey  are  tLere,  but  only 
wLen  Le  gets  tLem  back  in  Lis  own  Louse  again. 
TLe  most  fatal  tLing  in  men  is  tLat  recognizing  of 
tLeir  advantages,  all  founded  in  tLat  cursed  system 
of  self-conceit ;  I  can  call  it  by  no  otLer  name  ;  it 
Las  never  existed  but  for  tLe  ruin  of  a  man. 

All  tLis  went  on  more  and  more  ;  it  Lad  gained 
everywLere  a  footing.  TLe  consequence  was  tLat 
men  in  public  offices  tLougLt  no  more  of  tLeir 
duties  ;  eacL  gave  Lis  business  tLe  go-by  wLen  Le 
found  no  emolument  in  it.  It  was  long  since  any 
serious  attempt  Lad   been   made   to   renovate   tLe 


200  THE   DIAMOND   NECKLACE 

state  of  afiliirs.  The  duty  was  not  done,  tliougli  the 
wages  were  taken. 

In  that  country,  France,  where  scepticism  w^as  at 
its  highest  extent,  we  can  well  conceive  the  end  of 
the  last  century,  the  crisis  which  then  took  place, 
the  prurience  of  self-conceit,  the  talk  of  illumina- 
tion, the  darkness  of  confusion  !  The  story  of  the 
Diamond  Necklace,  for  example.  Goethe,  that  re- 
markable character,  a  close  observer  of  the  French 
Eevolution,  and  who  understood  better  than  any 
man  the  meaning  of  it,  regarded  this  strange  inci- 
dent of  the  necklace  as  so  much  "  half-burned  flax 
in  a  powder  magazine !  "  It  was  but  a  spark 
among  all  this  combustible  matter.  Such  a  depth 
of  wickedness  was  there  then  in  men. 

Another  symptom  that  this  scepticism  was  about 
to  end  was  the  new  French  kind  of  belief — belief 
in  the  new  doctrine  of  Kousseau,  though  he  did  not 
begin  it.  That  had  been  already  done  by  Mably, 
Montesquieu,  Kobertson,  and  other  writers  on  what 
they  called  the  Constitution.  But  Kousseau,  a  kind 
of  half-mad  man,  but  of  tender  pity  too,  struggliug 
for  sincerity  through  his  whole  life,  till  his  own 
vanity  and  egotism  drove  him  quite  blind  and  des- 
perate— Eousseau,  I  say,  among  those  writers,  was 
the  first  to  come  to  the  conclusion  of  the  Conlrat 
Social,  But  before  that  he  WTote  "  Essays  on  the 
Savage  State  " — that  it  was  better  to  live  there  than 
in  that  state  of  society  around  him.     We  have  a 


KOUSSEAU  201 

curious  anecdote,  given  by  himself  in  his  "  Confes- 
sions," of  the  manner  in  which  he  first  formed  his 
poHtical  opinions.  He  had  been  wandering  about 
somewhere  in  the  south  of  France,  and,  being  very 
tired  and  hungry,  he  called  at  a  cottage  and  asked 
for  food.  They  told  him  they  had  none.  He  per- 
sisted in  asking  for  some,  "  were  it  only  a  crust  of 
bread,"  and  at  last  the  cottager  gave  him  some 
black  mouldy  bread  and  water.  He  took  this  with 
thanks,  spoke  in  a  cheerful  and  conversible  manner, 
and  won  upon  the  heart  of  his  host.  Whereupon 
the  latter  told  him  to  stop,  and  he  opened  a  press 
and  took  from  it  some  extremely  good  food,  which 
he  set  before  him,  telling  him  that  he  was  obliged 
to  keep  very  secret  the  possession  of  what  comforts 
he  had,  "or  he  would  soon  have  no  food  for  his 
mouth  nor  clothes  to  his  back "  which  the  king's 
tax-gatherer  would  not  seize  or  his  lord's  bailiff. 
From  that  time  Eousseau  says  he  became  a  demo- 
crat. He  began  at  first,  as  I  said,  disquisitions  on 
savage  society  ;  then  followed  a  kind  of  revocation  of 
that,  a  summing  up  of  his  ideas  in  the  Conlrat  Social, 
the  fundamental  idea  of  the  French  Kevolution,  by 
which  a  final  stop  was  put  to  the  course  of  this  scep- 
ticism, and  all  things  came  to  their  ultimatum. 

The  French  Revolution  was  one  of  the  frightful- 
est  phenomena  ever  seen  among  men.  Goethe,  who 
lived  in  the  middle  of  it,  as  it  were,  declared  when 
it  broke  out,  and  for  years  after,  he  thought  it  "  like 


202  THE   FRENCH   REVOLUTION 

to  sweep  himself  away  with  it,  and  the  landmarks  of 
everything  he  best  knew,"  into  one  wild  black  dark- 
ness and  confusion.  However,  at  last  he  got  to  know 
it  better  than  any  other  one  of  his  time.  It  was, 
after  all,  a  new  revelation  of  an  old  truth  to  this  un- 
fortunate people.  They  beheld,  indeed,  the  truth 
there  clad  in  hell  fire,  but  they  got  the  truth.  This 
was  how  it  ended ;  but  it  began  in  all  the  golden  ra- 
diance of  hope,  the  belief  that  if  men  would  but  meet 
and  arrange  in  some  way  the  Constitution,  then  a 
new  heaven  and  new  earth  would  come  down  to- 
gether in  this  world.  For  they  suj)posed  that  we 
were  all  arranged  right  enough  personally,  we  only 
needed  the  arrangement  of  the  Constitution.  Ac- 
cordingl}^  they  arranged  it  in  the  most  perfect  sin- 
cerity of  heart.  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  this  sin- 
cerity. Take,  for  example,  the  Federation  of  1790, 
undertaken  in  the  real  spirit  of  Fraternity,  a  scene  of 
the  most  infantine  simplicity,  men  falliog  each  on 
the  other's  neck  with  tears  of  brotherly  affection  ;  all 
swore  that  they  would  keep  that  law.  All  classes 
were  rejoiced  at  the  intelligence  of  this.  For  the 
upper  class  of  people  it  was  the  joyfullest  of  news : 
now  at  last  they  had  got  something  to  do.  To  them 
therefore,  more  even  than  to  the  lower  classes,  this 
news  was  joyful :  certainly  to  starve  to  death  is  hard, 
but  not  so  hard  as  to  idle  to  death !  These  i^eo- 
ple  were,  therefore,  glad  as  nation  ever  was  :  so 
glad  !     This  was  in  1790. 


FRANCE   VERSUS   EUROPE  203 

Two  3'ears  and  six  weeks  after  tliat  tlie  September 
massacres  began  !  They  had  never  been  contem- 
plated when  the  Ee volution  commenced  ;  no  man 
friendly  to  the  Eevolution  had  any  idea  of  it.  But 
these  people  had  no  principle  in  what  they  did  but 
the  idea  of  their  duty  to  give  happiness  to  them- 
selves and  one  another  ;  that  was  their  virtue.  This 
is  not  a  true  notion  of  virtue.  A  man  who  would 
be  virtuous  must  not  expect  to  find  happiness  here. 
We  cannot  flatter  him  that  virtue  is  to  give  him 
temporal  happiness  ;  it  is,  too  often,  allied  to  phys- 
ical suffering.  We  can  say,  then,  as  to  these  phe- 
nomena of  the  French  Revolution  in  general,  that 
where  dishonest  and  foolish  people  are,  there  will 
always  be  dishonesty  and  folly.  We  cannot  distil 
knavery  into  honesty ! 

The  next  fact  that  we  have  to  notice  is  that  in 
such  a  consummation  Europe  would  infallibly  rise 
against  it,  and  try  to  put  it  down.  And  it  actually 
did  so.  Nor  could  Europe  avoid  it.  Euroj)e  had  a 
right  to  do  what  it  did,  just  as  the  French  Eevo- 
lution, which  it  tried  to  crush,  had  a  right  to  be. 
For  the  poor  people,  ground  down  to  the  lowest 
stage  of  oi)pression  and  misery,  had  a  right  to  rise 
and  strive  to  be  rid  of  it ;  they  had  rather  be  shot 
than  endure  it  any  longer.  And  Europe,  which  saw 
that  this  could  not  end  with  France,  but  that  the 
interests  of  all  its  nations  were  to  be  transacted  in 
that  arena,  had  a  right  to  put  it  down  if  it  could. 


204  BUONAPARTE 

And  there  was  no  way  to  adjust  tliese  two  nghts 
except  to  fight  it  out — that  dismal  conclusion  ! 
Europe,  therefore,  assembled,  and  came  round 
France,  and  tried  to  crush  the  Eevolution,  but 
could  not  crush  it  at  all.  It  was  the  primeval  feel- 
ing of  nature  they  came  to  crush.  Eound  it  the  old 
spirit  of  fanaticism  had  rallied,  and  it  stood  up  and 
asserted  itself,  and  made  Europe  know,  even  to  the 
marrow  of  its  bones,  that  it  was  there.  Buonaparte 
set  his  foot  on  the  necks  of  the  nations  of  Europe. 

Buonaparte  himself  was  a  reality  at  first,  though 
afterwards  he  turned  out  all  wrong  and  false.  But 
his  appreciation  of  the  French  Revolution  was  a 
good  one,  that  it  was  "  the  career  open  to  talents," 
not  simply  as  Sieyos  supposed,  a  thing  consisting  of 
two  Chambers,  or  of  one  Chamber.  And  this,  in 
fact,  is  the  aim  of  all  good  government  in  these 
days,  to  get  every  good  able  man  into  action  ;  all 
Europe  endeavors  to  put  the  ablest  man  in  a  situa- 
tion to  do  good.  Buonaparte  at  last  set  himself  up, 
put  out  the  Bourbons,  set  up  the  Buonapartes. 
But  the  thing  could  not  be  done.  He  made  wars 
and  went  about  plundering  everybody,  and  the  con- 
sequence was  that  as  all  the  sovereigns  had  been 
provoked  before,  France  provoked  every  man  now. 
In  Germany,  at  last,  he  stirred  up  that  old  Berser- 
ker rage  against  him,  by  which  he  burned  himself 
up  in  a  day,  and  France  then  got  ordered  back  into 
its  own  boundaries.     Thus  the  French  Eevolution 


END    OF   SCEPTICISM  205 

was  only  a  great  outburst  of  the  truth,  that  this 
world  was  not  a  mere  cliimera,  but  a  great  reality. 
Scepticism  was  ended,  and  the  way  laid  open  to  new 
things  whenever  they  should  offer. 

In  my  next  lecture  I  think  I  shall  show  you  that 
there  is  a  new  thing ;  we  shall  see  the  streaks  of 
something  developing  itself  in  Europe. 


LECTURE    XII. 

June  11th 

FOURTH    PERIOD 

Of   Modern  German   Literature— Goethe   and   His 
Works. 

During  tlie  last  two  or  three  lectures  we  Lave 
brought  the  history  of  that  particular  phenomenon 
of  European  culture,  which  we  are  obliged  to  de- 
nominate scepticism,  down  to  its  last  manifestation, 
the  great  but  not  at  all  universally  understood 
phenomenon  of  the  French  Revolution,  the  burning 
up  of  scepticism,  an  enormous  phenomenon  !  It 
was,  we  saw,  the  inevitable  consummation  of  such 
a  thing  as  scepticism.  The  life  of  man  cannot 
subsist  on  doubt  or  denial,  it  subsists  only  on  belief, 
attaching  itself  to  bring  out  of  any  particular  theory 
what  life  it  offers.  The  French  Revolution  began 
some  centuries  before  it  finally  broke  out ;  a  rude 
condition  to  go  through  all  Europe,  a  fiery  phe- 
nomenon to  go  through  all  the  world,  it  was  in- 
dispensable. Yet,  frightful  as  it  was  in  itself,  and 
as  productive  of  a  bloody  twenty-five  years'  war,  we 


A  NEW   PEKIOD  207 

ouglit  to  welcome  it :  it  was  the  price  of  what  is 
indispensable  to  our  existence,  aud  at  that  time  the 
world  at  whatever  price  must  have  got  done  with 
scepticism.  The  human  mind  cannot  forever  live 
in  bitter  sneering  contrast  with  what  lies  about  it, 
it  must  turn  back  at  last  to  communion  once  more 
with  Nature.  It  was,  therefore,  a  cheering  thing ; 
a  piiceless  worth  was  in  it :  by  it  the  European 
family  got  its  feet  once  more  out  of  the  mists  and 
clouds  of  logic,  and  got  down  again  to  a  firm  footing 
on  the  ground.  It  is  now  nearly  twenty-five  years 
since  the  first  act  of  this  drama  finished,  and 
Napoleon,  who  from  being  the  great  "  armed  soldier 
of  democracy,"  became  at  last  a  poor  egotist,  and 
with  his  ambition  and  rapacities  provoked  the  whole 
earth,  got  flung  out  in  the  end  to  St.  Helena  as  an 
instrument  which  Providence  had  once  made  use  of, 
but  had  done  with  now.  It  becomes  then  interest- 
ing for  us  to  inquire  what  we  are  to  look  for  now. 
In  what  condition  has  this  consummation  left  the 
minds  of  men  ?  Are  we  to  reckon  on  a  new  period 
of  things,  of  better,  infinitely  extending  hopes  ?  or  is 
scepticism  still  to  go  on  in  the  same  phase  through 
Europe?  To  these  questions  we  shall  direct  our 
attention  to-day. 

In  the  first  place  I  must  remark  that  if  we  admit 
the  French  Revolution  to  be  such  a  thing  as  it 
really  is,  we  shall  see  that  such  a  continuance  of  old 
things  had   become  altogether  impossible,  that  all 


208  MAN   AWAKENED 

things  predicted  of  it  had  come  to  pass,  that  men 
had  shaken  off  their  formulas  and  awoke  out  of  the 
nightmare  that  had  gone  on  so  long,  crushing  the 
life  out  of  them,  that  state  of  paralysis ;  and  that 
man  so  awakened,  like  as  in  the  fable  of  Antseus, 
gathered  strength  and  life  once  more  as  he  touched 
the  earth  and  its  realities.  If  we  look  over  the 
history  of  Europe,  both  prior  to  the  French  Eevolu- 
tion  and  since,  we  see  good  in  store  for  us  ;  the 
political  world  if  not  better  regulated  still  regulated 
by  a  reality,  and,  independently  of  that,  the  spiritual 
side  of  things  undergoing  a  great  change  also,  by 
means  of  the  modern  school  in  German  literature,  a 
literature  presenting  a  character  far  more  cheering 
to  us  than  any  literature  that  has  appeared  for  a 
long  series  of  generations. 

In  the  second  place  we  can  notice  here  a  strik- 
inef  illustration  of  the  ancient  fable  of  the  Phoenix. 
The  ancients  had  a  wise  meaning  in  all  these  fables, 
far  deeper  than  any  of  their  philosophies  have.  All 
things  are  mortal  in  this  world  ;  everything  that 
exists  in  time  exists  with  the  law  of  change  and 
mortality  imprinted  upon  it.  It  is  the  story  of  the 
Phoenix  which  periodically^  after  a  thousand  years, 
becomes  a  funeral  pyre  of  its  own  creation,  and  so 
out  of  its  own  ashes  becomes  a  new  Phoenix.  It  is 
the  law  of  all  things.  Paganism,  for  example,  in  its 
time  produced  many  great  things,  brave  and  noble 
men,  till  at  last  it  came  to  fall  and  crumble  away 


MEANING   OF   GERMAN   LITERATURE      209 

into  a  mere  disputatious  philosophy.  And  so  down 
to  the  Protestant  system  ;  for  the  Middle  Ages  in 
this  respect  answered  to  the  Heroic  Ages  of  old 
Greece,  and  as  Homer  had  lived,  so  Dante  lived. 
Similarly"  the  destruction  of  the  Eoman  system  of 
Paganism  (for  the  Romans  had  their  distinct  system, 
very  different  from  that  of  the  Greeks),  like  the 
introduction  of  Protestantism,  was  followed  by  its 
own  period  of  Wertherisni,  a  kind  of  blind  struggle 
against  the  evils  that  lay  around  it,  and  ending  at 
last  in  what  was  infinitely  more  terrific  than  any 
French  Ee volution,  that  wild  in-bursting  of  all  the 
barbarians  into  the  old  world,  long  spell-bound  by 
the  Eoman  name,  but  now  determined  not  to  endure 
any  longer  the  domination  of  so  degraded  and 
profligate  a  race  ;  when,  I  saj,  these  barbarians 
gathered  themselves  and  burst  in  on  that  world  and 
consumed  it !  The  awfullest  period  ever  known. 
And  just  so  in  later  times  the  French  Eevolution, 
that  bursting  in  of  the  masses  who  could  not  starve, 
could  not  submit  to  it,  but  must  rise  up  and  get 
rid  of  the  oj^pression  that  weighed  them  down  ; 
this,  I  say,  is  little  less  remarkable  while  it  lasts, 
until  there  is  found  force  enough  in  society  to  sub- 
due it. 

These  things,  therefore,  being  finished,  and  lyinf 

behind  us,  we  now  naturallj'.  enough  might  inquire 

what  new  doctrine  it  -i«  that  is  now  proposed  to  us ; 

what  is  the  meaning  of  German  literature?     But 

14 


210  OEIiMAN   DOCTRINES 

tliis  question  is  not  susceptible  of  an  immediate 
answer.  It  is  one  of  the  chief  qualities  of  German 
literature,  that  it  has  no  particular  theory  at  all,  in 
the  front  of  it  ;  very  little  theory  is  to  be  had 
posted  tliere — oClcrcMl  for  sale  to  us.  The  men  who 
(;{)iiHtj'U(;tcd  tlio  German  literature  had  quite  oilier 
objects  in  view  ;  tlieir  object  was  not  to  teach  the 
world,  but  to  ^vo^k  out  in  some  manner  an  enfran- 
chisement for  their  own  souls,  to  save  themselves 
from  being  crushed  down  by  the  world.  And  on 
the  contrary,  BC(;in<^  hero  what  I  have  been  always 
convuic(!d  I  saw,  the  l)l(!Hse(l,  thrice  blessed,  plie- 
iiomenon  of  men  uniuutilated  in  all  that  constitutes 
man,  able  to  believe,  and  bo  in  all  tliiugs  men  ; 
seeing  tliis,  I  ^jay,  tliere  is  lierc  the  tiling  that  lias 
all  other  things  presupposed  iu  it.  It  needed  but 
the  first  time  to  have  been  ever  done,  the  second 
time  they  would  have  found  it  a  great  deal  easier  to 
do. 

As  to  their  particular  doctrines,  tliere  is  nothing 
defiiiito  or  precise  to  bo  said.  How  they  thought 
or  iv\{,,  how  ihcy  proposed  to  bring  in  the  heroic 
age  again,  how  they  did  their  task,  can  only  be 
learned  by  dint  of  studying  long  what  it  is  these 
men  found  it  good  to  say.  Doubtless  there  are  few 
hero  who  are  as  yet  siiihciently  a(!(piainted  with  the 
language  to  make  that  study,  but  I  hope  it  will  not 
bo  many  years  before  it  will  be  dillicult  to  get  any 
aiidicncij  gathered  here   to  hear  a  lecture  upon  the 


RECIPES   FOR  HAPPi:!^ESS  211 

literature  of  Germany  without  having  read  its  chief 
productions.  To  explain  them  best,  I  can  only 
think  of  the  revelation,  for  I  call  it  no  other,  that 
tbese  men  made  to  me.  It  was  to  me  like  the 
lisiiLg  of  a  light  in  the  darkness  which  lay  around 
and  threatened  to  swallow  me  up.  I  was  then  in 
the  veiy  midst  of  Wertherism,  the  blackness  and 
darkness  of  death.  There  was  one  thing  in  particu- 
lar which  struck  me  in  Goethe  :  it  is  in  his  ''"Wil- 
helm  Meister."  He  had  been  describing  an  asso- 
ciation of  all  sorts  of  people  of  talent,  formed  to 
receive  propositions  and  give  responses  to  them, 
aU  which  he  described  with  a  sort  of  seiiousness  at 
first,  but  with  irony  at  the  last.  However,  these 
people  had  long  had  their  eye  on  Wilhelm  Meister, 
with  great  cunning  watching  over  him,  at  a  distance 
at  first,  not  interfeiing  with  him  too  soon.  At  last, 
the  man  who  was  intrusted  with  the  management  of 
the  thing,  took  him  in  hand,  and  began  to  give  him 
an  account  of  how  the  association  acted.  Now  this 
is  the  thing  which,  as  I  said,  so  much  struck  me. 
He  tells  "W'ilhelm  Meister  that  a  number  of  applica- 
tions for  advice  were  daily  made  to  the  association, 
which  were  answered  thus  and  thus,  but  that  many 
people  wrote  in  particular  for  recipes  of  happiness, 
all  that,  he  adds,  "  was  laid  on  the  shelf,  and  not 
answered  at  all !  "  Now  this  thing  gave  me  great 
surprise  when  I  read  it  *'  What !  "  I  said,  "  is  it 
not  the  recipe  of  happiness  that  I  have  been  seeking 


212  THE  WORSHIP   OF   SORROW 

all  my  life  ;  and  isn't  it  precisely  because  I  have 
failed  in  finding  it  that  I  am  now  miserable  and 
discontented  ?  "  Had  I  supposed,  as  some  people 
do,  that  Goethe  was  fond  of  paradoxes,  that  this 
was  consistent  with  the  sincerity  and  modesty  of 
the  man's  mind,  I  had  certainly  rejected  it,  without 
further  trouble,  but  I  could  not  think  it.  At  length, 
after  turning  it  over  a  great  while  in  my  own  mind, 
I  got  to  see  that  it  was  very  true  what  he  said,  that 
it  was  the  thing  about  which  all  the  world  was  in 
eiTor.  No  man  has  the  right  to  ask  for  a  recipe  of 
happiness,  he  can  do  without  happiness.  There  is 
something  better  than  that.  All  kinds  of  men  who 
have  done  great  things,  priests,  prophets,  sages, 
have  had  in  them  something  higher  than  the  love 
of  happiness  to  guide  them,  spiritual  clearness  and 
perfection,  a  far  better  thing  than  happiness.  Love 
of  happiness  is  but  a  kind  of  hunger  at  the  best ;  a 
craving,  because  I  have  not  enough  of  sweet  provi- 
sion in  this  world.  If  I  am  asked  what  that  higher 
thing  is,  I  cannot  at  once  make  answer  :  I  am  afraid 
of  causing  mistake.  There  is  no  name  I  can  give  it 
that  is  not  to  be  questioned.  I  could  not  speak 
about  it :  there  is  no  name  for  it  but  Pity  ;  for  that 
heart  that  does  not  feel  it,  there  is  no  good  volition 
in  that  heart.  This  higher  thing  was  once  named 
*'  The  Cross  of  Christ,"  not  a  happy  thing  that  sure- 
ly. The  worship  of  sorrow  named  by  the  old  heroic 
martyrs,  named  in  all  the  heroic  sufierings,  all  the 


METAPHYSICIANS  213 

heroic  acts  of  man.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the 
whole  creed  of  German  hterature  can  be  reduced  to 
this  one  thing,  it  would  be  absurd  to  say  so  ;  but 
that  was  the  commencement  of  it.  And  just  as 
AVilliara  Penn  said  of  the  Pagan  system,  that  Chris- 
tianity was  not  come  to  destroy  what  was  true  in  it, 
but  to  purify  it  of  errors,  and  then  to  embrace  it 
within  itself  ;  so  I  began  to  see  with  respect  to  this 
world  of  ours,  that  the  Phoenix  was  not  burnt  wholly 
up  when  its  ashes  were  scattered  in  the  French  Rev- 
olution, but  that  there  was  yet  something  immortal 
in  all  things  that  were  genuine,  which  now  survived, 
and  for  the  future  was  to  cherish  all  hopes.  For  it 
is  the  special  nature  of  man  to  have  comfort  by  him, 
to  aid  and  support  himself.  If  there  is  any  one  of 
you  here  now  prosecuting  the  same  kinds  of  studies 
as  I  then  did,  and  has  not  arrived  at  it  yet  by  a  way 
of  his  own  (for  there  are  many  ways  to  it),  he  will, 
when  he  first  discovers  this  high  truth,  be  anxious 
to  know  what  it  is,  and  get  better  and  better  ac- 
quainted with  it. 

And  that  you  also  may  be  enabled  to  realize  to 
5'ourselves  what  I  have  realized  to  myself,  I  shall 
proceed  to  point  out  one  or  two  figures  in  German 
literature,  one  or  two  men  who  have  been  the  chief 
speakers  in  it. 

Of  the  XDhilosophers  of  Germany,  the  metaphy- 
sicians of  Germany,  I  shall  say  nothing  at  present. 
I  studied  them  once  attentively  ;  but  I  found  that  I 


214  GOETHE 

got  iiotliing  out  of  them.  One  may  just  say  of  tliem 
that  they  are  the  precisely  opposite  to  Hume  ;  Hume 
startiug  out  of  materialism  and  sensualism,  certain 
of  nothing  except  that  he  himself  was  alive ;  while 
the  Germans,  on  the  contrary,  start  from  the  prin- 
ciple "that  there  is  an  universal  truth  in  things" — 
spiritualism  ;  that  trying  to  go  about  seeking  evi- 
dences for  belief  is  like  one  who  would  search  for 
the  sun  at  noonday  by  the  light  of  a  farthing  rush- 
light !  Blow  out  your  rushlight,  they  say,  and  you 
will  soon  see  the  sun  !  But  this  study  of  meta- 
physics, I  saj',  had  only  the  result,  after  bringing 
me  rapidly  through  different  phases  of  opinion,  at 
last,  to  deliver  me  altogether  out  of  metaphysics.  I 
found  it  altogether  a  frothy  system ;  no  right  be- 
ginning to  it,  no  right  ending.  I  began  with  Hume 
and  Diderot,  and  as  long  as  I  was  with  them  I  ran 
at  Atheism,  at  blackness,  at  materialism  of  all  kinds. 
If  I  read  Kant,  I  arrived  at  j)recisely  opposite  con- 
clusions, that  all  the  world  was  s^^irit  namely,  that 
there  was  nothing  material  at  all  anywhere ;  and 
the  result  was  what  I  have  stated,  that  I  resolved 
for  my  part  to  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  meta- 
physics at  all  ! 

The  first  writer  I  shall  notice  is  Goethe.  The  ap- 
pearance of  such  a  man  at  any  given  era  is,  in  my 
opinion,  the  greatest  thing  that  can  hapjoen  in  it — 
a  man  who  has  the  soul  to  think,  and  be  the  moral 
guide  of  his  own  nation  and  of  the  whole  world. 


GOETHE   AND   SHAKESPEARE  215 

All  people  that  live  under  his  influence  gather 
themselves  round  him,  and  therefore,  although 
many  writers  made  their  appearance  in  Germany 
after  him,  Goethe  was  the  man  to  whom  they  looked 
for  inspiration  ;  they  took  from  him  the  color  they 
assume.  I  can  have  little  to  say  of  him  in  these 
limits.  I  can  say  of  him  the  same  as  I  said  of 
Shakespeare  :  there  has  been  no  such  man  as  him- 
self since  Shakespeare.  He  was  not  like  Shake- 
speare, yet  in  some  respects  he  came  near  to  Shake- 
speare— in  his  clearness,  tolerance,  humane  depth. 
He,  too,  was  a  devout  man.  You  grant  a  devout 
man,  j^ou  grant  a  wise  man  :  no_man_  has  a  seeing 
®Z®J^iyi^yi-toi- having Jiad  a  geein^  hearjL Other- 
wise the  genius  of  man  is  but  spasmodic  and  frothy. 
I  should  say,  therefore,  that  the  thing  one  often  hears, 
*'  that  such  and  such  a  man  is  a  wise  man,  but  a 
man  of  a  base  heart,"  is  altogether  an  impossibility, 
thank  Heaven  !  Virtue  is  the  palladium  of  our  in- 
tellects. If  wickedness  were  consistent  with  wis- 
dom, we  should  often  have  the  Devil  in  this  world 
of  ours  regulating  all  our  affairs ;  but  the  thing  is 
impossible. 

Thus  all  the  things  in  Shakespeare  breathe  of 
wisdom  and  morality,  and  all  are  one.  So,  if  you 
grant  me  Goethe's  worth,  you  grant  me  all  things 
beside  it.  Indeed,  we  may  find  his  greatness  in 
this  one  fact.  We  saw  his  "  Werther  "  and  "  Ber- 
lichingen "   appear,    those   fountain  -  heads  of    that 


216 


European  literature  which  has  been  going  on  ever 
since.  Goethe  himself  soon  got  out  of  that  alto- 
gether, and  he  resolved  to  be  sincere  once  more, 
being  convinced  that  it  was  all  wrong,  nonsense, 
mean,  and  paltry ;  and  that,  if  there  was  nothing 
better  to  be  done  with  it,  he  ought  to  hold  iiis 
tongue  about  it  altogether.  This  was  to  feel  like 
one  who  was  to  become  one  of  the  kings  of  this 
world.  Accordingly,  for  twenty  years  after  that, 
while  all  Germany  was  raging,  as  we  saw,  and  the 
whole  people  had  in  a  manner  become  one  set  of 
desperate,  whiskered  man-haters,  Goethe  held  his 
peace.  Fame  to  him  was  little  in  comparison  with 
an  enfranchised  soul.  His  next  work  (for  "  Faust," 
properly  speaking,  belongs  to  the  "Werther"  pe- 
riod) was  "  Wilhelm  Meister,"  i3ublished  in  the 
year  1795.  This  is  a  strange  book,  and  though  it 
does  not  fly  away  on  the  Avind  like  "  Werther,*'  it  is 
even  stranger  than  "  "Werther." 

At  this  time  the  man  has  got  himself  organized  at 
last — built  up  ;  his  mind  adjusted  to  what  he  can- 
not cure,  not  suicidally  grinding  itself  to  pieces. 
But  there  was  no  pity  yet  in  him.  It  is  very  curious 
to  observe  how  at  this  time,  ideal  art,  painting, 
poetry,  were  in  his  view  the  highest  things,  good- 
ness being  only  included  in  it.  There  is  even  no 
positive  recognition  of  a  God,  but  only  of  a  stubborn 
force,  really  a  kind  of  heathen  thing.  Still,  there 
is  some  belief  ;  belief  in  himself,  that  most  useful  of 


217 


all  beliefs.  He  got  that  when  his  strength  was  at 
its  highest.  As  his  miud  gets  higher,  more  concen- 
trated in  itself  (for  Goethe  lived  very  silent,  the 
most  silent  of  men),  in  its  own  privacy  it  becomes 
more  serious  too,  uttering  tones  of  most  beautiful 
devoutness,  recognitions  of  all  things  that  are  true 
in  the  world. 

For  example,  in  the  continuation  of  his  "Wil- 
helm  Meister,"  w^-itten  when  he  w'as  near  seventy 
yeai'S  old,  there  is  a  chapter  that  has  been  called 
the  best  chapter  ever  yet  written  on  Christianity. 
I  never  met  anywhere  with  a  better.  It  is  out  of 
that  I  quoted  that  beautiful  phrase  applied  to 
Christianity,  "  the  Worship  of  Sorrow,"  also  styled 
by  him  "  the  Divine  Depth  of  Sorrow !  "  Also  in 
the  last  book  of  all  he  ever  wrote,  the  most  consid- 
erable book  in  a  poetical  view,  the  "  West-Ostlicher 
Divan,"  we  have  the  same  display  of  pious  feeling. 
Yet  it  is  in  form  a  Mahometan-Persian  series  of  de- 
lineations, but  its  whole  spirit  is  Christian  ;  it  is 
that  of  Goethe  himself,  the  old  poet  who  goes  up 
and  down  singing  little  snatches]  of  his  own  feelings 
on  different  things.  It  grows  extremely  beautiful 
as  it  goes  on,  full  of  the  finest  things  possible,  which 
sound  like  the  jingling  of  bells  when  the  "  queen  of 
the  fairies  rides  abroad."  The  whole  gathers  itself 
up  in  the  end  into  what  Goethe  thinks  on  matters 
at  large.  But  we  can  see  that  what  he  spoke  is  not 
the  thousandth  part  of  what  lay  in  him.     It  is,  in 


218  DEFENCE   OF   GOETHE 

fact,  the  principal  charm  in  him,  that  he  has  the 
wisdom  to  speak  what  is  to  be  spoken,  to  be  silent 
on  what  is  not  to  be  spoken. 

Alongside  of  Goethe  we  must  rank  Schiller.  By 
the  bye,  I  have  said  nothing  about  the  objections 
sometimes  made  to  Goethe.  It  is  a  mortifying  thing 
to  feel  that  want  of  recognition  among  men  to 
which  a  great  writer  is  subject.  Not  that  Goethe 
has  not  had  in  general  an  ample  recognition  ;  but 
still  there  are  men,  whose  ideas  are  not  nonentities 
at  all,  but  who  very  much  differ  about  Goethe  and 
his  character.  One  thing  that  has  been  said  of  him 
very  strangely  is  that  in  all  his  writings  he  appears 
"too  happy."  A  most  amazing  accusation  against  a 
man  !  much  more  against  Goethe,  who  tells  us  that 
in  his  youth  he  could  often  have  run  a  dagger  into 
his  heart.  He  could  at  any  time  have  been  as  mis- 
erable, if  he  liked,  as  these  critics  could  wish  ;  but 
he  very  wisely  kept  his  misery  to  himself,  or  rather 
misery  was  to  him  the  problem  he  had  to  solve,  the 
work  he  had  to  do.  Thus,  when  somebody,  on 
seeing  his  portrait,  exclaimed,  "  Voilu  un  homme 
qui  a  eu  beaucoup  de  chagrin,"  he  instantly  replied, 
"  No  !  but  of  one  rather  who  has  turned  his  suffer- 
ings into  useful  work  !  "  Another  objection  made 
to  him  has  been  that  he  never  took  part  in  the  polit- 
ical troubles  of  his  time,  never  acted  either  as  a 
Reformer  or  Conservative.  But  he  did  right  not  to 
meddle  with  these  miserable  disputes.     To  expect 


SCHILLER  219 

this  of  Lis  genius  would  be  like  asking  the  moon  to 
come  out  of  the  heavens,  and  become  a  mere  street 
torch,  and  then  to  go  out. 

Schiller  has  been  more  generally  admired  than 
Goethe,  and  no  doubt  he  was  a  noble  man  ;  but  his 
qualification  for  literature  was  in  every  way  nar- 
rower than  Goethe's.  The  principal  characteristic 
of  Schiller  is  a  chivalry  of  thought,  described  by 
Goethe  as  "  the  Spirit  of  Freedom,"  struggling  ever 
forward  to  be  free.  It  was  this  that  produced  "  The 
Bobbers."  Goethe  says  that  the  "  very  shape  of 
his  body  and  the  air  with  which  he  walked  showed 
the  determined  lover  of  freedom,  one  who  could  not 
brook  the  notion  of  slavery,"  and  that  not  only 
under  men,  but  under  anything  else.  But  Schiller, 
notwithstanding  this,  in  my  opinion,  could  not  have 
written  one  good  poem  if  he  had  not  met  with 
Goethe.  At  the  time  of  their  meeting  he  had  last 
written  the  play  of  "Don  Carlos,"  a  play  full  of 
high-sounding  but  startling  things.  The  principal 
character,  ]\Iendoza,  in  particular  talks  very  grandly  iMH^ 
and  largely  throughout.  It  is  well  described  as 
being  like  a  '*'  lighthouse,  high,  far-seen,  and  withal 
empty."  It  is,  in  fact,  very  like  what  the  people  of 
that  day,  the  Girondists  of  the  French  Revolution, 
were  always  talking  about,  the  "Bonheur  du  Peu- 
ple,"  and  the  rest.  To  this  point,  then,  Schiller  had 
arrived,  when,  being  tired  of  this  kind  of  composi- 
tion, he  left  poetry,  apparently  forever,  and  wrote 


220  GOETHE  AND   SCHILLER 

several  very  sound  historical  books,  and  nothing 
else. 

Goethe,  who  was  ten  years  older  than  Schiller, 
first  met  him  at  this  period.  He  did  not  court  an 
acquaintance  with  him.  In  fact,  he  says  himself 
that  he  "  disliked  Schiller,"  and  kept  out  of  his  way 
as  much  as  possible.  Schiller  also  disliked  Goethe 
for  his  cold  impassivity,  and  tried  to  avoid  him  too. 
However,  they  happened  to  come  together,  and  a 
mutual  friendship  ensued  ;  and  it  was  very  credit- 
able to  Schiller — how  he  attached  himself  to  Goethe, 
and  sought  his  instructions,  and  how  he  got  light 
out  of  Goethe.  There  was  always  something,  how- 
ever, monastic  in  Schiller.  He  never  attempted  to 
bring  the  great  page  of  life  into  poetry,  but  would 
retire  into  corners,  and  deal  with  it  there.  He  was 
too  aspiring,  too  restless  ;  it  brought  him  to  the  bed 
of  sickness  ;  he  could  not  live  in  communion  with 
earth.  It  is  melancholy  to  read  how  in  his  latter 
days  he  used  to  spend  whole  nights  in  his  garden 
house,  drinking  wdne-chocolate  (a  beverage  of  which 
I  can  form  no  notion)  to  excess.  Here  he  was  often 
seen  by  his  neighbors,  declaiming  and  gesticulating 
and  writing  his  tragedies.  His  health  became  com- 
pletely destroyed  by  it,  and  finally  he  died  at  the 
age  of  forty. 

There  was  a  nobleness  in  Schiller,  a  brotherly 
feeling,  a  kindness  of  sympathy  for  what  is  true  and 
just.     There  was  a  kind  of  silence,  too,  at  the  last. 


RICHTER  221 

He  gave  up  his  talk  about  the  "  Bonheur  du  Peuple," 
and  tried  to  see  if  he  could  make  them  happier  in- 
stead. Accordingly  his  poems  became  better  and 
better  after  his  acquaintance  with  Goethe.  His* 
*'  Wilhelm  Tell  "  was  the  best  thing  he  ever  wrote. 
There  runs  a  kind  of  melody  through  it ;  the  de- 
scription of  the  herdsman  of  the  Alps  is  exquisite. 
It  is  a  kind  of  Swiss  thing  itself  ;  at  least,  there  are 
passages  in  it  which  are  quite  in  that  character. 
It  i^roperly  finishes  at  the  fourth  act.  The  fifth 
was  afterward  added,  as  the  rules  of  the  drama 
obliged  him  to  write  it ;  but  this,  though  it  may 
have  been  considered  a  fault,  is  not  a  fault  for  the 
reader. 

The  third  great  writer  in  modern  German  litera- 
ture whom  I  intend  to  notice  is  Jean  Paul  Fried- 
rich  Kichter.  Richter  was  a  man  of  a  large  stature, 
too.  He  seems,  indeed,  to  be  greater  than  either  ; 
but,  in  my  opinion,  he  was  far  inferior  to  Goethe. 
He  was  a  man  of  a  hard  life,  miserable  enough  for 
the  people  even  who  complain  of  Goethe.  I  do  not 
mean  that  he  was  unhappy  in  any  particular  circum- 
stances ;  but  what  I  do  say  is,  that  he  had  not 
gained  a  complete  victory  over  the  world  as  Goethe 
had  done.  Goethe  v/as  a  strong  man,  as  strong  as 
the  mountain  rocks,  but  as  soft  as  the  green  sward 
upon  the  rocks,  and,  like  them,  continually  bright 
and  sun-beshone.  Richter,  on  the  contrary,  was 
what  he  has  been  called,  a  "  half-made  "  man.     He 


222  EICHTER 

struggled  with  the  world,  but  was  never  completely 
triumphant  over  it. 

But  one  loves  Richter.  He  is  most  universally  to 
*  be  loved,  indeed,  provided  one  can  get  to  read  him. 
But  that  is  a  great  proviso,  for  his  style  is  as  con- 
fused and  unintelHgible,  as  Goethe's  is  the  best  of 
styles — like  the  clear  harmony  of  Xenophon,  but 
far  deeper  than  Xenophon.  As  he  is  the  best  of 
Germans  for  style,  Richter  is  the  worst.  He  cannot 
get  half  the  things  said  that  he  has  to  say — a  con- 
fused, strange,  tumultuous  style !  It  is  like  some 
tangled  American  forest,  where  the  axe  has  never 
been,  and  no  j)ath  lies  through  it.  For  my  part,  I 
tried  to  understand  him  over  and  over  again  before 
I  succeeded  ;  but  I  got  finally  to  perceive  his  way 
of  thinking,  and  I  found  a  strange  kind  of  order  in 
him  at  last,  and  it  was  quite  easy  after  that  to  make 
him  out.  His  is  a  most  gorgeous  style  ;  not  an 
articulate  voice,  but  like  the  sound  of  cataracts  fall- 
ing among  the  wild  pine-forests  !  It  goes  deep  in 
the  human  heart.  A  man  of  a  great  intellect,  great 
heart,  great  character — all  exemplified  in  his  way  of 
life. 

His  father,  who  was  a  clergyman,  dying  when  he 
was  young,  left  him  in  charge  to  his  mother,  a  fool- 
ish woman,  by  whom  his  patrimony  was  completely 
wasted.  In  his  twenty-fifth  year  he  entered  the 
University  of  Leipsic.  He  was  at  this  time  of  a 
stranoe  nature  ;  there   was  a  sort  of  affectation  in 


i 


RIcnTER*S  NOVELS  223 

him.  Not  only  bad  lie  no  words  adequate  to  express 
his  ideas,  but  those  he  had  were  not  good  enough. 
He» found  the  professors,  in  his  eyes,  very  feeble  in- 
dividuals. He  met  there,  however,  Ernesti,  the 
distinguished  scholar,'  for  whom  he  had  a  great 
regard.  Yet  his  college  life  was  one  of  great  pri- 
vations. He  says  :  "In  gaols  the  prisoner's  allow- 
ance is  bread  and  water.  I  had  the  latter,  but  not 
the  former."  Plenty  of  water,  but  no  bread  !  Yet 
he  was  a  cheerful,  indomitable  man  amid  it  all. 
He  held  his  peace  and  struggled  on,  determined  to 
wait  his  time.  That  time  came  !  The  people  of 
the  college  had  thought  him  mad,  but  he  soon 
i^roved  to  them  that  he  was  not  a  madman,  for  he 
bestirred  himself,  and  wrote  books  which  became 
very  successful.  I  recommend  my  friends  here  who 
know  German  to  read  his  novels :  to  struG'^^le 
through  his  difficulties  of  style,  and  get  acquainted 
with  him.  He  has,  amoDg  other  qualities,  that  of 
great  joyousness  ;  there  is  more  joyous  laughter  in 
the  heart  of  Eichter  than  in  any  other  German 
writer.  Goethe  has  it  to  a  certain  extent,  and 
Schiller  too ;  but  Richter  goes  into  it  with  all  his 
heart.  It  is  a  deep  laughter,  a  wild  laughter  ;  and, 
connected  with  it,  there  is  the  deepest  seriousness. 
Thus  his  dreams ;  they  are  as  deep  as  those  of 
Dante  :  dreams  of  annihilation,  not  surpassed,  per- 
haps, except  by  the  prophetic  books  of  the  Bible. 
There  are  yet  many  more  writers  besides  those 


224  FUTURE  PROSPECTS 

I  have  named,  but  I  Lave  not  time  for  them.  What 
can  I  do  ?  I  can  but  invite  my  friends  to  get  ac- 
quainted with  them,  and  find  out  for  themselves  the 
nature  of  the  belief  that  is  in  these  men.  They  will 
find  in  them  not  a  theory,  not  the  demonstration  of 
motion  ;  but  they  will  see  men  walking,  which  is  far 
better. 

I  shall  add  but  a  few  words  on  our  prospects  of 
what  is  next  to  come.  I  think,  therefore,  that  we 
have  much  reason  to  hope  about  the  future.  Great 
things  are  in  store  for  us.  The  world  has  but 
begun  to  enter  upon  this  new  course,  and  wise  men 
will,  I  trust,  continue  to  come  and  devote  themselves 
to  it.  This  hope  assures  me  when  I  see  people  in  a 
deep  distress  about  it  ;  for  I  feel  that  it  is  possible 
for  us  to  be  free — to  attain  to  the  possession  of  a 
spiritual  freedom,  compared  with  which  political  en- 
franchisement is  but  a  name ;  not  living  on  any 
longer  in  a  blind  sensualism  and  egotism,  but  suc- 
ceeding to  get  out  and  be  free,  out  of  this  state  of 
nightmare  and  paralysis.  It  is  my  hope  that  the 
words  which  were  spoken  by  Richter  in  the  end  of 
the  eighteenth  century  are  to  come  true  in  this.  It  is 
a  most  remarkable  passage,  and  I  must  endeavor  to 
give  it  you.  He  had  been  saying  that  on  the  out- 
gates  of  European  history  he  thought  he  could  read 
inscribed  a  similar  inscription  to  that  which  the 
Russians  had  engraved  on  the  iron  gate  at  Derbent, 
*'Here  goes  the  road  to  Constantinople."     That  so, 


LEAVE-TAKING  225 

on  the  out-gates  of  events  be  could  also  read,  "  Here 
goes  the  road  to  virtue  !  "  "  But  as  yet,"  he  goes  on 
to  say,  "  as  yet  are  struggles.  It  is  now  the  twelfth 
hour  of  the  night  (it  was,  indeed,  an  awful  period)  ; 
birds  of  darkness  are  on  the  wing  (evil  and  foul 
things  were  meditated  on)  ;  the  spectres  uprear  ;  the 
dead  walk  ;  the  living  dream.  Thou,  Eternal  Provi- 
dence, wilt  cause  the  da}'  to  dawn ! " 

I  cannot  close  this  lecture  better  than  by  repeat- 
ing these  words  of  Richter  :  ''Thou,  Eternal  Provi- 
dence, wilt  cause  the  day  to  dawn  !  " 

Nothing  now  remains  for  me  but  to  take  my 
leave  of  you — a  sad  thing  at  all  times  that  word,  but 
doubly  so  in  this  case.  When  I  think  of  what  you 
are  and  of  what  I  am,  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  you 
have  been  very  kind  to  me  !  I  won't  trust  myself  to 
say  how  kind  !  But  you  have  been  as  kind  to  me  as 
ever  audience  was  to  man,  and  the  gratitude  which 
I  owe  you  comes  to  you  from  the  bottom  of  my 
heart. 

May  God  be  with  you  all ! 

15 


NOTES 


LECTUKE  I. 

Page  3.  —  The  PelasgL — Vague  statements  about  the 
Pelasgi  were  currently  and  most  uncritically  accepted  at 
the  time  of  Carlyle's  Lectures.  Even  in  later  years  pro- 
fessed scholars  seem  unwilling  to  confess  how  little 
they  know  concerning  them.  Thus,  a  strange  mixture  of 
truth  and  error  exists  in  the  learned  Essay  of  Canon 
Eawlinson — "On  the  Traditions  respecting  the  Pelas- 
gians  " — ai^pended  to  his  version  of  Herodotus  (Vol.  III. 
pp.  530-538,  4th  ed.  1880). 

A  useful  note  on  the  Pelasgi  and  some  other  obscure 
tribes  mentioned  by  Greek  writers  will  be  found  in  Vol. 
I.  of  the  last  edition  (1891)  of  Max  Miiller's  Science  of 
Language.  After  examining  (p.  136  et  seq.)  the  most 
accredited  sources  of  information  Professor  Max  Miiller 
concludes — "It  is  lost  labor  to  try  to  extract  anything 
positive  from  these  statements  of  the  Greeks  and  Eo- 
mans  on  the  race  and  the  language  of  their  barbarian 
neighbors." 

We  cannot  enter  here  upon  the  discussion  of  a  subject 
so  wide  as  the  origin  of  the  Hellenic  and  Italic  peoples. 
The  reader  will  find  it  most  compendiously  treated, 
with  abundant  references  to  other  authorities,  in  Vol. 
in.  of  Dr.  I  wan  Miiller's  useful  Handbuch  der  Kiassischen 
Alterthums-irissenscJia/f.      This    volume,    published    in 


228  NOTES 

1889,  is  by  six  different  authors.  (It  can  be  had  sepa- 
rately.) No  English  work  replaces  it.  For  the  Pelas- 
gi  see  especially  p.  364  and  context. 

Page  4. — Foolish  to  War  for  a  Woman.  —  "  Now  as  for 
the  carrying  off  of  women,  it  is  the  deed,  they  say,  of  a 
rogue  ;  but  to  make  a  stir  about  such  as  are  carried  off, 
argues  a  man  a  fool.  Men  of  sense  {e.g.,  Ulysses,  in 
Shakespeare's  Troilus  and  Ci-essida]  care  nothing  for 
such  women,  since  it  is  plain  that  without  their  own 
consent  they  would  never  be  forced  away.  The  Asiatics, 
when  the  Greeks  ran  off  with  their  women,  never  troub- 
led themselves  about  the  matter;  but  the  Greeks,  for 
the  sake  of  a  single  Lacedaemonian  girl,  collected  a  vast 
armament,  invaded  Asia,  and  destroyed  the  kingdom  of 
Priam."  Herodotus,  I.  4  (Kawlinson's  version).  lo  and 
Europe  are  noticed  in  the  preceding  paragi-aphs  1  and  2. 

Page  6. — Greek  still  spoken  in  parts  of  Italy. — The  fol- 
lowing passage  lately  written  at  Lecce  (Lupiae)  in  south- 
ern Italy  by  a  well-known  French  poet  and  romance- 
writer  eloquently  confirms  Carlyle's  words  : 

*'Un  je  ne  sais  quoi  de  delicat  s'y  mele  qui  trahit, 
par-dessous  I'ltalie  et  I'Espagne,  le  vieux  fond  Hellene. 
Dans  cette  province  jieupl^e  de  villages  ou  I'on  parle 
encore  grec,  il  semble  qu'un  rien  de  I'ame  antique  ait 
laisse  partout  sa  trace.  Les  airs  que  chantent  les  en- 
fants  prennent  dej^  ce  trainement  de  m61op6e  grave, 
tres  distinct  de  la  cantilene  si  vite  commune  de  Naples. 
Les  habitants  ont  une  sobriete  de  gestes  qui  contraste 
avec  le  voisinage  du  Midi  bruyant.  II  y  a,  dans  le  de- 
tail des  choses  de  la  rue,  des  gentilesses  ou  Ton  se  i^lait 
it  retrouver  la  preuve  d'une  race  affinee, — comme  ce 
petit  iDont  de  bois  monte  sur  des  roues  que  Ton  dresse 
d'un  trottoir  a  I'autre  par  les  jours  de  pluie  pour  que 


NOTES  229 

vous  puissiez  passer  sans  vons  salir, — et,  lorsque  c'est 
comme  maiutenant,  marclie  public,  la  forme  ties  lampes 
de  terre  avec  leur  bee  allonge,  celle  des  vases,  j'allais 
dire  des  ampbores,  menagees  pour  I'buile  et  le  vin,  avec 
leurs  deux  oreilles,  suffit  a  vous  rappeler  que  ces  pay- 
sans  venus  des  plaines  avoisinantes  sont  les  beritiers 
modemes  des  colons  cretois  debarques  avec  Idomenee 
et  les  arriere-neveux  des  anciens  sujets  de  Daunus,  le 
beau-pere  de  Diom^de."  (Paul  Bourget,  Sensations 
(TltaUe,  p.  229.     Paris,  1891.) 

Page  7. — Date  of  the  Trojan  War. — For  "a  list  of  tbe 
principal  views  on  tbis  subject,"  see  Rawlinson's  note 
to  Herodotus,  II.  145. 

Page  9. — Lycidas. — Herodotus,  IX.  5. 

Page  10. — Pelasgic  Architecture. — Usually  termed  Cy- 
clopean. See  Rawlinson's  Herodotus,  Vol.  III.  p.  537  ; 
4tb  ed.  See  also  Schliemann's  Ausgrahungen,  von  Dr. 
Carl  Scbucbbardt,  2d  ed.  '  Leipzig,  1891.  Tbis  useful 
book,  epitomizing  in  one  volume  all  Scbliemann's  works, 
is  now  translated  into  Englisb.  Tbe  wall  of  Tiryns, 
figured  on  p.  122,  bas  many  stones  measuring  2-3  metres 
in  lengtb,  and  1  metre  (nearly  forty  incbes)  in  lieigbt 
and  deptb. 

Page  12. — Euhemerism. — For  a  satisfactory  explana- 
tion of  tbis  tbeory  on  tbe  origin  of  mytbology  see  Max 
Miiller's  Science  of  Language,  Vol.  II.  p.  41:9,  ed.  of  1891. 

Page  13. — Philipjndes. — His  name  in  many  manu- 
scripts is  spelt— Pbeidii^pides.     Herodotus,  VI.  105. 

Page  15.— 77^6  Getce.— Herodotus,  IV.  94.  Tbe  otber 
people  wbo  made  war  upon  tbe  soutb  wind  are  tbe  Psylli 


230  KOTES 

(Herodotus,  IV.  173),  noticed  by  Plutarch,  Pliny,  and 
various  writers.  Tliey  lived  close  to  the  Greater  Syrtis, 
in  the  Libyan  oases,  and  were  renowned  as  snake 
charmers. 

LECTUKE  II. 

Page  17. — Wolff. — Many  do  not  know  that  the  opinions 
on  Homer  which  have  made  the  name  of  Friedrich 
August  Wolf  so  celebrated  were  anticipated  by  Giam- 
battista  Vico,  the  author  of  the  Scienza  Nuova,  of  whose 
life  and  writings  a  pleasing  account,  by  Bishop  Tliirl- 
wall,  will  be  found  in  the  second  volume  of  the  Philo- 
logical Museum  (Cambridge,  1833). 

Page  17. — The  Homeric  Controversy. — What  is  called 
the  Homeric  question  has  two  divisions.  Both  concern 
the  Iliad.  The  first  compares  this  poem  with  the 
Odyssey.  The  second  discusses  the  relations  of  the 
whole  Iliad  to  its  parts. 

Many  passages  of  the  Odyssey,  considered  (as  Hamlet 
says)  too  curiously,  seem  to  show  that  it  may  have  been 
composed  at  a  later  period  than  the  Iliad.  It  describes 
scenes  and  beliefs,  men,  arts,  and  circumstances,  in  a 
manner  often  foreign  to  our  readings  of  its  predecessor. 
These  views,  respectable  when  urged  by  thoughtful 
critics,  have  gained  a  crowd  of  adherents  to  the  opinion 
— that  one  Homer  could  not  have  written  both  poems, 
an  opinion  older  than  the  Christian  era. 

That  the  Iliad,  as  we  now  have  it,  is  without  unity  of 
composition  has  certainly  not  yet  been  j)roved.  Wolf's 
conglomerate  theory,  to  which  so  many  have  yielded  (it 
may  be  with  reservations  put  forward  as  critical  by  those 
who  envy  Wolf  his  miserable  reputation),  appears  allow- 
able only  so  long  as  we  dwell  on  the  mosaic  structure  of 


^^OTES  231 

the  poem  with  its  varied  episodes  and  its  few  trifling  in- 
consistencies. Let  lis  grant  that  before  Wolf's  time  this 
mixed  nature  of  the  Iliad  was  not  suflSciently  recognized 
(for  Homer's  changes  are  so  pleasing  that  one  pauses  not 
always  to  ask  the  reasons  of  these  changes).  Is  the 
Iliad  therefore  a  patchwork,  because  we  cannot  believe 
in  a  Homer  who  invented  all  that  was  once  assigned  him 
and  who  was  supposed  himself  to  supply  his  own  ma- 
terials ?  The  rhapsodists  living  before  and  beside  Ho- 
mer doubtless  recited  numerous  hymns  and  ballads,  the 
greatest  of  which  told  the  fate  of  Troy  and  the  anger  of 
Achilles.  They  sang  to  audiences  who  appreciated  the 
diverse  versions  of  their  lays  due  to  the  inventiveness  of 
successive  singers.  Homer,  his  mind  filled  with  these 
songs,  re -shaped  and  put  together  such  of  them  as  best 
fitted  his  high  purjDOse.  In  this  work  of  giving  form 
and  combination  to  scattered  themes  lay  the  real  strength 
of  his  genius.  Could  any  poet  do  more  ?  The  elements 
of  existence  are  always  the  same ;  the  artist  moulds  and 
composes  them  into  expressiveness.  The  infinite  lies 
ever  around  us,  within  us.  The  commonest  things  are 
more  suggestive  than  w^e  suppose  ;  they  are  infinite  in 
the  extent  and  diversity  of  their  relationships. 

The  whole  Homeric  question  thus  gets  involved  in 
the  wider  one  concerning  the  application  of  current 
phrases  to  designate  the  artist's  productions.  What  is 
the  significance  of  words  like  invention  and  originality, 
employed  as  synonyms  for  a  certain  excellence  of  literary 
compositions?  The  word  invention  itself,  by  a  hajDpy 
amphibolism,  when  used  transitively  cannot  be  deprived 
of  its  primitive  meaning.  Shakespeare  knew  this.  He 
represents  Worcester  planning  the  rebellion  against 
Henry  IV.,  but  he  makes  Falstaff  say  of  him  with  grim 
irony,  "Kebellion  lay  in  his  way,  and  he  found  it." 
Poor  Worcester  therefore  was  not  original,  though  his 


232  NOTES 

invention  cost  him  his  head.  No  man  of  genius  is 
original  if  we  regard  only  his  materials.  A  weaver  is 
nobody.  A  smith  makes  neither  coals  nor  iron  ore. 
The  miner  who  is  nearer  nature  is  an  extractor,  not  a 
fabricator.  Such  spurious  analysis  would  render  Saxo, 
not  Shakespeare,  the  author  of  Hamlet  ;  it  would  resolve 
portraits  into  pigments  and  canvas.  But  who  accepts 
these  results  ?  True  invention  is  a  thing  too  subtle  to 
be  analyzed.  The  critics  who  like  parasites  crawl  over 
men  of  genius  never  can  discover  it.  On  the  other  hand 
there  is  a  painful  originality  which  all  excellent  authors 
avoid.  They  remember  that  what  is  called  the  common- 
place interests  when  presented  from  new  points  of  view. 
The  overpowering  inventiveness  of  Edgar  Poe  is  a  de- 
fect ;  his  horrors  displease  us  on  a  second  perusal. 
Sophocles,  more  moving  than  any  other  tragedian  except 
the  author  of  "  Lear,"  did  not  invent  the  awful  myth  of 
(Edipus.  He  took  it  as  it  was  and  transformed  it  for 
ever  into  a  thing  of  power  and  beauty.  The  story  of 
the  Saltzburg  emigrants  was  re-fashioned  by  Goethe 
into  his  "Hermann  und  Dorothea."  Art  and  nature, 
here  in  perfect  harmony,  have  united  to  fjroduce  the 
most  finished,  the  most  Greek-like  of  post-classical 
poems.  The  first,  like  the  last,  of  poets  was  a  shaper,  a 
creator.  Before  all  others  he  called  into  being  persons 
and  deeds  never  to  be  forgotten.  The  real  Agamemnon 
must  have  been  a  poor  creature  compared  to  the  "  King 
of  Men  "  portrayed  by  Homer. 

In  reviewing  Homer  it  is  wrong  to  begin  by  contrast- 
ing the  Iliad  with  the  Odyssey — an  easy  task.  This  was 
"Wolf's  j)rocedure,  who  did  but  industriously  follow  a 
clew  already  traced  in  the  writings  of  Bentley.  By  pur- 
suing an  opposite  course,  by  first  studying  the  Iliad  as 
an  independent  work,  we  drop  the  prejudice  which  makes 
plausible  these  attempts  to  break  the  earlier  epic  into 


NOTES  233 

pieces.  If  then  we  again  take  up  the  Odyssey  we  find 
it  not  so  difficult  to  conclude  that  its  author  also  wrote 
the  Iliad.  To  retain  the  more  archaic  constituents  of 
the  latter  was  surely  not  beyond  Homer's  skill.  The 
remembrance  of  old  customs  and  of  quaint  phrases  had 
not  yet  expired  in  the  minds  of  his  hearers.  The  nice 
discrimination  of  the  means  at  his  disposal  for  the  proper 
treatment  of  his  two  great  subjects  could  not  puzzle 
Homer,  as  it  has  done  his  commentators. 

Homer  is  for  laymen  more  than  for  scholars.  These 
have  mauled  him  and  made  a  muddle  of  his  works,  his 
fame,  his  personality  ;  those  have  revered  him  and  above 
all  read  him.  They  have  translated  his  writings,  exca- 
vated his  soil,  and  drawn  renewed  inspiration  from  his 
surroundings.  Voss  and  Lord  Derby,  Schliemann  and 
Byron  have  interpreted  Homer  better  even  than  Heyne, 
better  than  the  learned  and  conscientious  Grote.  Schlie- 
mann's  diggings  have  caused  us  to  distrust  Grote's  ex- 
cessive scej^ticism,  so  gently  rebuked  by  his  friend 
Hallam  (whose  long  letter  is  given  in  The  Personal  Life 
of  George  Grote,  by  Mrs.  Grote,  pp.  164-169),  Byron's 
plea  for  the  truth  of  Homer  now  triumphantly  shows 
(see  his  "Bride  of  Abydos,"  Canto  II.,  2-4)  that  the 
poet's  insight  transcends  that  of  the  professors.  All 
difficulties  about  the  Homeric  poems  sink  into  nothing 
when  we  gi-asp  the  final  question — could  a  plurality  of 
Homers  have  existed  ?  That  they  did  not  exist  is  a  be- 
lief some  students  have  never  ceased  to  cherish.  And 
(to  borrow  Yorick's  words)  "  the  vulgar  are  of  the  same 
opinion  to  this  hour." 

Page  19. — Piohin  Rood's  Ballads. — A  much  better  illus- 
tration is  now  afforded  by  the  Kalevala  of  the  Tavastians 
or  inhabitants  of  Western  Finland.  *'  Their  epic  songs 
still  live  among  the  poorest,  recorded  by  oral  tradition 


234  NOTES 

alone,  and  preserving  all  the  features  of  ar  perfect  metre 
and  of  a  more  ancient  language.  A  national  feeling  has 
arisen  among  the  Fins,  despite  of  Eussian  supremacy : 
and  the  labors  of  Sjogern,  Lonnrot,  Gastrin,  Kellgren, 
Krohne,  and  Donner,  receiving  hence  a  powerful  im- 
pulse, have  produced  results  truly  surprising.  From  the 
mouths  of  the  aged  an  epic  poem  has  been  collected 
equalling  the  Iliad  in  length  and  completeness — nay,  if 
we  can  forget  for  a  moment  all  that  we  in  our  youth 
learned  to  call  beautiful,  not  less  beautiful.  A  Fin  is 
not  a  Greek,  and  Wainamoi'nen  was  not  a  Homeric 
rhapsodos.  But  if  the  poet  may  take  his  colors  from 
that  nature  by  which  he  is  surrounded,  if  he  may  depict 
the  men  with  whom  he  lives,  the  Kalevala  possesses 
merits  not  dissimilar  from  those  of  the  Iliad,  and  will 
claim  its  place,  as  the  fifth  national  epic  of  the  world, 
side  by  side  with  the  Ionian  songs,  with  the  [Indian] 
Mahdbhdrata,  the  [Persian]  Shdhndmeh,  and  the  [Ger- 
man] Nihelunge.  If  we  want  to  study  the  circumstances 
under  which  short  ballads  may  grow  up  and  become 
amalgamated  after  a  time,  into  a  real  epic  poem,  nothing 
can  be  more  instructive  than  the  history  of  the  collection 
of  the  Kalevala.  We  have  here  facts  before  us,  not 
mere  surmises,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Homeric  poems  and 
the  Nibelunge.  We  can  still  see  how  some  j)oems  were 
lost,  others  were  modified  ;  how  certain  heroes  and  epi- 
sodes became  popular,  and  attracted  and  absorbed  what 
had  been  originally  told  of  other  heroes  and  other  epi- 
sodes. Lonnrot  could  watch  the  effect  of  a  good  and  of 
a  bad  memory  among  the  jjeople  who  repeated  the  songs 
to  him,  and  he  makes  no  secret  of  having  himself  used 
the  same  freedom  in  the  final  arrangement  of  these 
poems  which  the  people  used  from  whom  he  learnt 
them."  (Max  Miiller's  Science  of  Language,  Vol.  I.,  p. 
437.) 


^•OTES  285 

Page  20. — Charactei'  of  Hornet'' s  Poems. — Homer  in 
describing  natural  objects  and  events  had  the  advant- 
age over  other  eminent  poets  of  coming  first.  But  this 
will  not  account  for  his  inimitable  freshness.  Neither 
can  we  explain  it  by  saving  that  he  possessed  those 
qualities  which  all  consummate  artists  share  jn  com- 
mon. To  feel  the  full  charm  of  Homer  we  must  hear 
him  as  a  Greek  who  sung  to  Greeks.  That  is  whv  he 
is  now  addressing  the  world. 

The  adaptation  of  Greek  character  to  Greek  circum- 
stances sujDplies  a  constant  topic  for  admiration.  Greece 
so  suited  the  ancient  Greeks  during  the  earlier  and  bet- 
ter i^eriods  of  their  history  that  one  might  say  truly — 
mind  has  never  since  been  so  happily  combined  with 
matter.  English  readers,  a  few  students  and  visitors  to 
the  Mediterranean  excej^ted,  seem  to  miss  the  signifi- 
cance of  Greece  through  some  vice  or  defect  of  organi- 
zation. Yet  one  may  still  walk  up  to  the  Acropolis 
through  the  "  shining  clear  air  "  of  Euripides.  Fogs 
and  beer  are  but  poor  substitutes  for  wine  and  sunlight. 
The  English,  though  wealthy  and  powerful,  are  discon- 
tented. The  Greeks  were  active  but  not  unresting  as 
we  are.  Disposed  to  cheerfulness  they  gained  repose 
by  not  craving  what  was  beyond  their  reach.  The 
Greeks  loved  returning  to  familiar  things  ;  they  sought 
no  impossible  j^leasures,  but  enjoyed  life  as  they  found 
it  amid  their  own  beautiful  world.  Mountains  to  them 
were  awful  as  the  dwelling  places  of  the  gods,  yet  they 
saw  these  mountains  arising  from  jDleasant  plains  and 
rearing  their  crests  under  a  smiling  heaven.  Ever  the 
blue  sky  covered  them,  the  earth  was  fertile,  the  forest- 
shade  grateful,  the  sea  rich  and  strange,  the  air  fra- 
grant, luminous,  and  warm.  The  Greek  mind  was  fitted 
by  a  wonderful  capacity  to  take  in  all  the  good  it  could 
get.     Like  flowers  on  a  fine  day,  this  gay  intellectual 


236  NOTES 

people  opened  to  receive  the  light  that  shone  on  them. 
Their  feelings  did  not  wear  out.  Their  senses  did  not 
tire.  They  did  not,  like  the  moderns,  faint  from  ennui. 
Unlike  the  cold  inhabitants  of  Northern  Europe,  the 
demon  of  dissatisfaction  had  not  taken  possession  of 
their  souls.  Pessimist  critics  fail  to  perceive  the  inher- 
ent excellence  of  the  Greeks.  Their  learning  alone  will 
not  teach  them  to  appreciate  these  children  of  the  sun 
who,  with  child-like  susceptibility,  thought  daily  exist- 
ence a  delight,  who  lived  and  who  were  happy.  Pleased 
with  so  much  gratitude  the  whole  universe  looked  on  ; 
kind  Nature  smiled  and  flung  fresh  gifts  to  the  favored 
of  earth  and  heaven.  Thus  Art  arose,  a  bright  exhala- 
tion of  the  dawn,  a  grateful  incense  upon  Nature's  al- 
tar. What  the  Greek  saw  he  loved,  what  he  wrought 
he  refined,  what  he  touched  he  made  beautiful.  His 
thoughts  were,  like  his  firmament,  transparent,  exqui- 
site ;  his  works  sincere,  fair,  and  finished.  Why  did  he 
not  stay  with  us?  Why  did  he  go  away  to  a  heaven  al- 
ways rich  and  leave  an  earth  made  poor  without  him  ? 
''The  Beauty  asked  Zeus — why  am  I  so  transitory? 
Did  I  not,  said  the  god,  make  only  the  transitory  fair  ?  " 
These  are  the  words  of  one  who  well  understood  the 
Greeks,  though  he  was  a  modern  and  a  German.  But 
he  was  a  man  of  genius  and  a  poet — Goethe.  Hapi^ily 
genius  is  beyond  time  and  place.  Let  us  pray  that  men 
of  genius  may  ever  arise  to  console  mankind  for  the  ab- 
sence of  the  vanished  Greeks. 

Goethe  has  a  striking  passage  in  his  Propylaen  show- 
ing why  a  perfect  work  of  Art  appears  also  like  a  work 
of  Nature.  He  says — "It_is  supra  naturam,  but  not  e.r- 
trajiQiLmmi.  A  perfect  work  of  Art  is  a  creation  of  the 
human  mind,  and  in  this  sense  it  is  also  a  work  of  Nat- 
ure. But  whereas  the  scattered  parts  are  here  gathered 
up  into  one,  and  even  to  the  most  insignificant  are  as- 


NOTES  237 

signed  their  due  import  and  dignity,  on  that  account 
does  it  rank  above  IS'ature.  In  conception  and  composi- 
tion, it  is  the  creation  of  a  mind  which,  by  origin  and 
cultivation,  is  at  harmony  with  itself ;  and  such  a  mind 
finds  that  by  nature  it  is  in  unison  with  all  that  is  in- 
trinsically excellent  and  perfect."  [Shakespeare  comes 
close  to  these  views  in  Act  IV.,  Scene  3,  of  A  Wintei-'s 
Tale.] 

Moreover  the  modesty  of  the  artist,  who  knows  better 
than  others  that  he  cannot*comprehend  the  full  sugges- 
tiveness  of  his  subject,  makes  him  appear  less  than  he 
is.  Carlyle  has  profoundly  said — "In  the  commonest 
human  face  there  lies  more  than  Raphael  will  take  away 
with  him."  The  true  artist  therefore  gives  us  his  thoughts 
under  the  gnise  of  simple  descriptions. 

Such  are  Homer's  descriptions.  His  words  convey 
more  than  they  first  express.  They  never  lose  their 
meaning.  They  still  speak  to  us  when  the  battle  of  life 
is  well  nigh  over.  Eminent  men  of  noisy  reputation, 
once  innocent  scholars  but  led  astray  by  worldly  ambi- 
tion (whether  on  the  joaths  of  politics,  law,  trade,  or  ec- 
clesiastical strife  matters  little)  may  keep  uncorrupted 
one  corner  of  their  heart  which  registers  and  responds 
to  youthful  sympathies  with  Homer.  Such  men  cannot 
be  altogether  lost.  There  is  a  something  in  them,  if  not 
their  own,  which  may  yet  soften  the  inexorable  Parcse, 
nay  even  Minos  himself.  Plutarch  tells  how  the  Sicilians, 
before  sheltering  a  shii3  chased  by  pirates,  asked  if  any 
on  board  could  repeat  to  them  verses  from  Euripides. 

Page  21. — noo-etSo)!/. — It  was  at  the  Isthmian  games 
that  Poseidon  was  especially  honored.  In  less  pious 
times  a  profane  Greek  versifier  thus  referred  to  him  : 

"When  Neptune  appeared  at  the  Isthmian  games, 
He  spoke  most  politely  to  numerous  dames. 


238  NOTES 

But.  not  finding  one  free  from  frivolity. 

He  bowed  and  went  back  to  his  home  in  the  sea. 

'The  mermaids,'  lie  murmured,  'are  better  for  me.'" 

Paiisanias  (VIII.,  10)  tells  how  *'  the  Mantineans  said 
that  Poseidon  appeared  helping  them  "  in  their  victory 
over  the  Lacedsemonians  (see  Mr.  Shilleto's  translation). 

Page  23. — The  Bark-colored  Sea. — In  his  beautiful  pas- 
sage on  art  (Iliad,  XXIII.,  313-318,  and  context)  Homer 
makes  Nestor  say  to  Antilochus — 

' '  By  skill  the  steersman  guides 
His  flying  ship  across  the  dark-blue  sea." 

BarTi-hlue  is  here  Lord  Derby's  translation  of  a  word 
which,  strictly  rendered,  is  wine-looking.  (The  French 
call  certain  dark-colored  wines  viyis  hleus.)  The  Latin 
translators  of  Homer  ventured  to  substitute  black. 
Homer  has  another  term  for  the  open  sea  reflecting  the 
light  blue  of  the  sky.  The  sea  "  far  shaded  by  the  rocky 
shore  "  (Byron's  "  Giaour,"  line  43)  and  dangerous  to  the 
pilot  was  what  Nestor  meant.  The  fine  and  almost  weird 
effect  produced  by  this  dark  water  in  contrast  with  "the 
blue  crystal  of  the  seas  "  beyond  [ibid.,  line  17)  and  the 
intense  brightness  of  the  firmament  much  impressed 
Goethe  when  for  the  first  time  he  saw  it  at  Palermo  (the 
scenic  character  of  Sicily  resembling  that  of  Greece 
rather  than  Italy).  Byron  must  have  been  very  familiar 
with  it,  and  Lord  Derby,  with  appreciative  tact,  proba- 
bly thought  he  could  not  do  better  than  follow  the  lines 
in  the  "  Bride  of  Abydos"  (Canto  L,  9)— 

"  His  head  was  leant  upon  his  hand, 
His  eye  look'd  o'er  the  dark  blue  water." 

Other  English  translators  (see  Walker's  Clavis  Homer- 
ica,  p.  47)  say  the  darkling  main,  which  sounds  affected 


NOTES  239 

and  is  erroneous,  the  appearance  referred  to  being  no 
characteristic  of  the  ocean  in  general.  Homer  was  not 
thinking  of  the  main  but  of  those  parts  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean which  had  often  charmed  him.  I  do  not  know 
Avhether  Mr.  Euskin  has  noted  this  passage. 

Some  German  critics  interpret  wine-looking  differently. 
Thus  Gobel  thinks  it  means  transparent  as  opposed  to 
troubled  sea-water.  Autenrieth  restricts  it  to  the  dee^) 
open  sea,  when  it  reflects  light  in  calm  warm  weather 
(see  the  Lexicon  Homericum  edited  by  H.  Ebeling).  It 
seems  to  be  forgotten  that  deep  water  may  occur  very 
close  to  shore.  Homer  applies  this  word  eighteen  times 
to  the  sea,  twice  to  cattle.  Drs.  Butcher  and  Lang 
translate  it  in  both  cases  ivine-dark. 

Page  24. — Epithets  of  Ulysses.  —  The  endurance,  or 
rather  pale  rage,  of  Ulysses  against  the  suitors  is  per- 
haps best  shown  in  the  opening  of  Book  XX.  of  the 
Odyssey.  Ulysses,  after  nightfall,  has  gone  to  rest  on 
a  bed  of  skins  in  the  veranda  of  his  own  house.  Seeing 
the  suitors'  mistresses  go  by  his  wrath  is  stirred,  where, 
upon  he  displays  the  struggle  within  his  mind  by  alter- 
nately expressing  and  calming  his  pent-up  feelings. 
The  reader  is  referred  to  the  translation  of  the  Odyssey 
by  Drs.  Butcher  and  Lang,  the  best  English  prose  ver- 
sion known  to  us.  These  writers  for  much-enduring  sub- 
stitute steadfast. 

As  to  the  epithets  of  Ulysses  Carlyle  is  certainly 
wrong.  The  word  he  translated  by  the  phrase — "  man 
of  cunning  and  stratagem  "  (i.e.,  prudent,  strategic)  is 
applied  to  Ulysses  only  fourteen  times  in  the  Iliad,  but 
sixty-six  times  in  the  Odyssey.  It  has  three  approxi- 
mate synonyms,  similarly  used,  eight  times  in  the  for- 
mer, twenty-four  in  the  latter  poem.  The  term  much- 
enduring,   with   its  synonyms,    does   not  occur   in  the 


240  NOTES 

Odyssey  fifty  times.  Surely  the  two  qualities  Carlyle 
opposes  are  not  incompatible.  They  are  so  far  from 
being  so  that  Homer  himself  ascribes  both  to  his  hero 
in  the  context  of  the  passage  to  which  we  have  above 
referred.  If  Victorian  is  to  prevail  over  Elizabethan 
English  the  terms  canny  and  gritty  will  take  the  places 
of  iDrudent  and  steadfast. 

Page  25. — Ajax  like  an  Ass. — Homer's  comparison  of 
Ajax  to  an  ass  may  be  naif,  but  it  is  also  scientifically 
true  and  simply  excellent. 

*'  As  when  a  sluggish  ass  has  got  the  better  of  the  boys, 
Passing  by  a  harvest  field,  and  many  a  stick  is  broken 
Upon  him,  yet  he  gets  within  and  crops  the  lofty  corn, 
While   they  with  cudgels   smite    him,  yet   their  strength 

cannot  avail, 
And  hardly  is  he  driven  forth  when  satisfied  with  food." 

Iliad,  XL,  558-562. 

The  ass,  like  Ajax,  is  constitutionally  courageous  to  a 
very  high  degree.  Not  being  a  predaceous  animal,  it 
shows  its  courage  chiefly  in  defence,  as  Ajax  does  in 
the  passage  quoted.  The  strong  nervous  system  of  the 
ass  is  displayed  not  only  by  its  pertinacity  but  by  its 
soundness  ;  for,  in  spite  of  the  bad  treatment  it  receives, 
it  is  little  subject  to  those  disorders  of  wind  and  limb 
which  beset  the  horse.  Moreover,  in  southern  and  east- 
ern countries  the  domestic  ass  is  often  a  splendid  ani- 
mal, carefully  improved  by  selection.  In  Homer's  days 
such  selection  was  not  unknown.  The  wild  ass  is  as 
graceful  as  the  gazelle.  In  England  the  ass  appears 
abject,  since  it  suffers  from  the  poverty  or  ignorance  of 
its  owner.  See  on  this  point  what  is  said  by  Darwin  in 
his  Variation  of  Animals  and  Plants  under  Domestication. 
In  Carlyle's  younger  days  little  attention  was  paid  to 
those  extra-zoological  topics  which  concern  rather  the 


NOTES  241 

scholar  than  the  naturalist,  and  which  are  now  made 
familiar  to  ns  by  the  writings  of  De  Gubernatis,  Victor 
Hehn,  and  others.  Gibbon,  it  is  true,  urged  historical 
students  to  read  for  pleasure  and  profit  those  classical 
chapters  of  Buffon  which  describe  domestic  animals. 
Buffon  nobly  pleads  for  the  ass,  neglected  by  the  nar- 
row-minded merely  because  it  is  not  a  horse. 

Page  26.— r/^e  Greek  type.-ihe  late  Mr.  Hope,  in 
his  Anastasius  (Chap.  IV.),  })uts  into  the  mouth  of  a 
modern  Greek  the  following  reflections  on  his  country- 
men : — 

*'  Believe  me,  the  very  difference  between  the  Greeks 
of  time  past  and  of  the  present  day  arises  only  from 
their  thorough  resemblance  ;  from  that  equal  pliability 
of  temper  and  of  faculties  in  both,  which  has  ever  made 
them  receive  with  equal  readiness  the  impression  of 
every  mould  and  the  impulse  of  every  agent.  When 
patriotism,  public  spirit,  and  pre-eminence  in  arts,  sci- 
ence, literature,  and  warfare,  were  the  road  to  distinc- 
tion, the  Greeks  shone  the  first  of  patriots,  of  heroes, 
of  painters,  of  poets,  and  of  philosophers.  Now  that 
craft  and  subtlety,  adulation  and  intrigue,  are  the  only 
l^aths  to  greatness,  these  same  Greeks  are — what  you 
see  them ! " 

See  the  context.  Anastasius  was  at  first  attributed  to 
Lord  Byron,  who  in  the  earlier  pages  of  his  Giaour  se- 
verely lashes  the  degenerate  Greeks.  For  an  eloquent 
tribute  to  the  qualities  of  the  ancient  Greeks  consult 
the  Port-Royal  of  Sainte-Beuve  (LivreS,  xviii.). 

Page  28. — Pythagoras. — Bayle  in  his  article  on  this 
philosopher  cites  almost  all  of  the  classical  comments 
on  the  precept  as  to  abstinence  from  beans.  A  further 
copious  instalment  of  Pythagorean  literature  is  given  in 
Krug's  Encydopddischphilosophisches  Lexicon. 
16 


242  NOTES 

Page  32. — jEschylus. — A  spirited  transMion  into  Eng- 
lish verse  of  the  opening  chorus  of  the  Agamemnon  was 
published  in  the  Classical  Museum  (Vol.  VII.,  pp.  97- 
104)  by  Professor  Blackie,  who  wrote  several  useful 
papers  on  iEschjlus  in  earlier  volumes  of  the  same 
periodical. 

Page  33. — Sophocles.  — Those  who  wish  to  enjoy  and  un- 
derstand Sophocles  should  use  the  editions  and  trans- 
lations of  his  plays  now  being  revised  by  Professor  Jebb. 
Cambridge  has  at  length  the  honor  of  being  foremost 
to  interpret  this,  the  foremost  of  the  Greek  drama- 
tists, as  formerly  she  took  possession  of  Euripides  by 
means  of  his  two  illustrious  editors,  separated  from  each 
other  by  a  century — Barnes  and  Porson. 

Page  34. — Socrates. — The  reader  of  course  is  aware 
that  we  possess  no  writings  of  Socrates,  and  that  what  we 
know  of  him  is  chiefly  derived  from  reports  of  his  con- 
versation and  habits  by  Xenophon  and  Plato.  These 
rank  among  the  most  precious  and  pleasing  of  the 
Greek  prose  classics.  A  very  readable  account  of  Soc- 
rates was  given  by  Bishop  Hampden  in  his  "Fathers 
of  Greek  Philosophy "  (reprinted  from  the  Encyclo- 
pcedia  Britannica).  The  reader  may  consult  this  as  a 
corrective  (especially  pp.  403  et  seq.)  of  Carlyle's  remarks 
on  Socrates  as  a  wire-drawer.  The  prejudice  of  Carlyle 
against  our  philosopher  was  noticed  by  Emerson  when 
he  visited  Carlyle  in  1833— "  We  talked  of  books. 
Plato  he  does  not  read,  and  he  disparaged  Soci'ates." 
Besides  a  paper  by  Schleiermacher  "  On  the  Worth  of 
Socrates  as  a  Philosopher  "  (translated  by  Bishop  Tliirl- 
wall  in  Vol.  II.  of  the  Philological  Museum)  the  most 
important  works  on  Socrates  are  Grote's  Plato  and  La 
Philosophie  de  SocratCy  par  Alfred  Fouillee,  2  vols., 
Paris,  1874. 


NOTES  243 

Page  36. — Tlie  Greek  Decline. — For  a  compendious 
survey  of  the  Greek  authors  neglected  by  Carlyle  see 
Jebb's  Primer  of  Greek  Literature,  a  book  equally  i^rofit- 
able  to  young  and  old  students,  jDarticularly  Part  III., 
"  The  Literature  of  the  Decadence."  Also,  Geschichie 
der  Dyzantinischen  Litteratur,  von  Karl  Ki'umbacher. 
8vo,  Miinchen,  1891. 


LECTURE   III. 

Page  41. — The  Etruscans. — More  copious  and  accurate 
information  on  this  people,  whose  real  origin  is  conjec- 
tural and  whose  language  is  still  completely  isolated, 
may  be  had  from  K.  O.  Miiller,  Die  Etrusker,  2  Aufl., 
von  Deecke,  Stuttgart,  1876,  1877. 

Page  41. — Cato,  Varro  and  Columella.  David  Hume 
gives  some  interesting  references  to  these  writers  in  his 
Essay  XI.  "  Of  the  Populousness  of  Ancient  Nations." 

Cicero  {De  Senectute  XV.)  represents  M.  Porcius  Cato 
vindicating  at  length  the  claims  of  agricultural  pursuits 
as  well  fitted  to  occupy  the  energies  of  the  Romans. 

Page  46. — Napoleon  on  Hannibal. — The  following  ci- 
tation is  from  the  Memorial  de  Sainte-Helene,  of  Las 
Cases  (Tome  VII.,  p.  237)  :— 

*'Et  cet  Ayinihal,  disait-il,  le  plus  audacieux  de  tons, 
le  plus  etonnant  peut-etre  ;  si  hardi,  si  sur,  si  large  en 
toutes  clioses  ;  qui,  a  26  ans,  con9oit  ce  qui  est  a  peine 
concevable,  execute  ce  qu'on  devait  tenir  pour  impos- 
sible ;  qui,  renongant  d  toute  communication  avec  sou 
pays,  traverse  des  peuples  ennemis  ou  inconnus  qu'il 
faut  attaquer  et  vaincre,  escalade  les  Pyrenees  et  les 
Alpes,  qu'on  croyait  insurmontables,  et  ne  descend  en 
Italic  qu'en  payant  de  la  moitie  de  son  armee  la  seule 


244  NOTES 

acquisition  de  son  champ  de  bataille,  le  seul  droit  de 
combattre ;  qui  occupe,  parcourt  et  gouverne  cette 
meme  Italie  durant  16  ans,  met  plusieurs  fois  a  deux 
doigts  de  sa  perte  la  terrible  et  redoutable  Rome,  et  ne 
laclie  sa  proie  que  quand  on  met  a  profit  la  le9on  qu'il  a 
donnSe  d'aller  le  combattre  cliez  lui.  Croira-t-on  qu'il 
ne  dut  sa  carriere  et  tant  de  grandes  actions  qu'aux  ca- 
prices du  hasard,  aux  f aveurs  de  la  fortune  ?  Certes,  il 
devait  etre  done  d'une  forte  trempe  d'ame,  et  avoir  una 
bien  haute  idee  de  sa  science  ;  en  guerre,  celni  qui,  in- 
terpelle  par  son  jeune  vainqueur,  n'liesite  pas  a  se 
placer,  bien  que  vaincu,  immgdiatement  apres  Alexandre 
et  Pyrrhus,  qu'il  estime  les  deux  premiers  du  metier." 
Napoleon  further  comments  on  Hannibal  in  his  "  Notes 
sur  I'Art  de  la  Guerre."  (See  Correspondance  de  Na- 
poleon, F%  Tome  XXXI.     Paris,  1869.) 

Page  48. — Words  traced  to  the  Pelasgi. — For  "suffi- 
cient proof  that  Latin  never  could  have  passed  through 
the  Greek,  or  what  used  to  be  called  the  Pelasgic  stage, 
but  that  both  are  independent  modifications  of  the  same 
original  language,"  see  Vol.  I.  of  Max  Mailer's  Science 
of  Language.  -• 

Page  54.  —  Ovid. — Carlyle  would  perhaps  have  been 
less  severe  on  Ovid  had  he  noted  that  the  grave  Milton 
preferred  the  "Metamorphoses"  of  this  poet  to  any 
other  of  the  Latin  classics.  Barrow  also  is  loud  in  his 
praise.     The  elder  Rousseau  thus  sums  him  up, — 

"  Ovide,  en  vers  donx  et  mclodieux, 
Sat  debrouiller  I'histoire  de  ses  dieux  : 
Trop  indulgent  an  feu  de  son  genie, 
Mais  varie,  tendre,  plein  d'liarmonie, 
Savant,  utile,  ingenieux,  profond, 
Riche,  en  un  mot,  sil  etait  moins  fecond." 


NOTES  2:15 

The  moralizing  Seneca  abused  him.  Montaigne  failed 
to  appreciate  him.  Princij^es  poetce  VirgiUus  et  Ovidiva 
is  the  verdict  of  Joseph  Scaliger.  But  he  thought  the 
Epistles  of  Ovid  his  most  perfect  work. 

Page  59. — Passage  from  Tacitus. — Of  this  passage, 
celebrated  as  the  first  noteworthy  reference  to  the  early 
Christians  by  a  pagan  author,  Gibbon  [Decline  and  Fall^ 
Chap.  XVI.)  gives  another  translation. 

The  same  passage  is  further  remarkable  as  showing 
how  Tacitus  sometimes  loses  power  by  not  considering 
that  the  law  of  moderation  holds  good  even  in  the  exer- 
cise of  that  rare  merit — brevity  of  expression.  Further 
illustrations  of  this  defect  in  that  great  writer  are  pleas- 
antly discussed  by  Father  Bouhours  in  his  delightful 
Maniere  de  Bien  Penser  dans  les  Ouvrages  d' Esprit,  a 
book  which,  together  watli  the  Memoirs  of  Cardinal  de 
Ketz,  was  highly  commended  by  the  most  graceful  of 
English  politicians.  Lord  Chesterfield. 

LECTURE   IV. 

Page  62. — The  Middle  Ages. — The  recognition  of  the 
Middle  Ages  shows  that  tripartite  arrangements,  in  spite 
of  superficial  objections,  are  not  always  to  be  set  aside 
in  favor  of  more  popular  and  usually  more  logical  bi- 
nary divisions.  The  partition  of  history  into  ancient 
and  modern  is  less  intelligible  and  significant.  Per- 
haps, when  the  world  is  older,  this  partition  may  come 
to  be  adopted  ;  but  in  that  case  what  we  call  the  Middle 
Ages  will  then  be  relegated  to  ancient  history,  and 
modern  history  will  date  from  the  first  appearance  of 
printed  books,  or  from  the  nearly  coincident  epoch  of 
the  discoveries  of  Columbus. 

The  breakiug-up  of  the  Roman  empire  was  a  slow  pro- 


246  NOTES 

cess.  Until  it  begins  we  are  clearly  within  the  limits  of 
ancient  history.  But  when  did  it  begin  ?  Koman  de- 
cadence came  not  alone  from  invading  barbarians,  be- 
coming conscious  of  their  growing  power.  It  was  also 
promoted  from  within.  It  had  its  origin  while  the  em- 
pire yet  appeared  strong,  but  displayed  its  self-abase- 
ment by  allowing  its  seat  to  be  transferred  from  the 
banks  of  the  Tiber  to  those  of  the  Bosphorus. 

The  Middle  Ages  end  with  the  Byzantine  Empire. 
But  this  empire  had  long  before  become  insignificant, 
though  not  till  long  after  were  established  those 
European  kingdoms  whose  foundation  seemed  to  follow 
the  failure  of  the  great  Eoman  dominion.  Are  these 
modern  kingdoms  established  ?  Greece  was  reconsti- 
tuted during  the  first  half  of  our  century  ;  Italy  in  the 
second  half.  To  the  present  boundaries  of  the  German 
empire  a  date  of  less  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  can  be 
assigned.  And  now  we  hear  of  wars  threatening  again 
to  unfix  these  limits.  An  ironical  writer  might  say,  not 
without  truth,  that  the  beginnings  of  modern  history 
are  still  dubious,  and  that  their  adequate  consideration 
must  be  left  to  some  historian  yet  unborn. 

For  the  present,  however,  we  may  conveniently  dis- 
tinguish the  Middle  Ages  (330-1453)  as  exhibiting  [a)  a 
capital  city,  (b)  a  religion,  (c)  certain  forms  of  govern- 
ment, (d)  a  learned  language,  and  (e)  a  poem,  which 
differs  no  less  from  the  literary  productions  of  antiquity 
than  it*does  from  those  of  modern  times. 

(a.)  Constantinople  was  the  capital  city  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  which  began  with  its  dedication  by  Constantine, 
and  ended  with  its  capture  by  the  Turks.  Here  again 
comes  in  the  irony  of  events.  In  ancient  history  EurojDe 
triumphs  over  Asia;  the  Trojans,  the  Persians,  the 
Phoenicians,  and  others  being  in  turn  successfully  re- 
pelled, while  modern  history  is  introduced  by  the  es- 


NOTES  247 

tablishment  in  Europe  of  an  Asiatic  power,  which  holds 
possession  of  the  seat  of  mediaeval  rule  to  this  day. 

{b.)  The  religion  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  Europe 
was  Catholicism,  i.e.,  established  Christianity.  Con- 
stantine's  endowment  of  his  own  Church  could  not  hin- 
der the  split  which  afterward  severed  the  eastern  from 
the  western  Christians.  It  is  easy  to  exaggerate  the 
importance  of  this  schism,  which  served  to  show  that 
Rome,  deprived  of  temporal  sway,  could  still  subdue  the 
minds  of  men.  The  blow  dealt  the  Catholic  Church  by 
the  secession  of  northern  Europe  from  its  allegiance 
marks  indeed  the  commencement  of  modern  histoiy. 
Yet  was  this  loss  the  effect  of  printing  and  political 
causes  rather  than  of  sincere  religious  convictions,  and 
the  Papal  power  has  since  succeeded  in  checking  the 
further  advances  of  Protestantism. 

(c.)  As  to  government,  the  Middle  Ages  display  the 
downfall  of  despotism,  the  anarchy  which  ensued,  and 
the  subsequent  rise  of  feudal  authority.  The  peoples  of 
Europe  then  possessed  very  little  power.  The  Roman 
pontiffs'became  more  dominant  than  kings  or  emperors. 
Subject  to  qualification  the  general  proposition  is  true — 
that  monarchy,  oligarchy,  and  democracy,  respectively, 
characterize  the  three  great  periods  of  histoiy.  In  this 
matter  likewise  we  seem  (but  seem  only)  returning  to 
ancient  ways. 

(d.)  During  the  transitional  linguistic  conditions  of 
the  Middle  Ages  men  of  learning  found  a  temporary  aid. 
in  such  Latin  as  they  could  use,  good,  bad,  and  indiffer- 
ent. The  Glossarium  of  Du  Cange  remains  the  most 
indispensable  guide  to  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  hands  of 
those  who  know  how  to  read  it. 

(e.)  But  in  1300  a  bold,  though  not  unconsidered, 
way  of  escape  from  this  jDrevailing  influence  of  the  Latin 
language  was  indicated  by  no  less  a  person  than  Dante. 


248  NOTES 

Not  only  does  the  Divine  Comedy  reveal  the  Middle 
Ages  and  Catholicism  by  a  crowd  of  allusions,  else  lost 
to  us,  but  its  unai^proachable  excellence  of  diction 
makes  welcome  the  light  it  sheds  on  what  is  eternal  in 
man's  nature,  and  those  recurring  events  which  to  the 
serious  never  can  lose  their  significance. 

Much  labor  will  henceforth  be  spared  the  student  of 
the  Middle  Ages  who  has  at  hand  the  valuable  Tresor  de 
Chronologie  iVHistoire  et  de  Geograpliie  pour  VHude  et 
Vemploi  des  documents  du  Moyen  Age,  i^ar  M.  le  C*  De 
Mas  Latrie,  Paris,  1889. 

Page  63. — Belief  during  the  Middle  Ages. — Jean  Paul 
in  his  eulogium  of  Herder  has  these  words  (which  we 
give  from  the  translation  of  De  Quincey): — 

"  Two  sayings  of  his  survive,  which  may  seem  trifling 
to  others  ;  me  they  never  fail  to  impress  profoundly  :  one 
was,  that  on  some  occasion,  whilst  listening  to  choral 
music  that  streamed  from  a  neighboring  church  as  from 
the  bosom  of  some  distant  century,  he  wished,  with  a 
sorrowful  allusion  to  the  cold  frosty  spirit  of  these 
times,  that  he  had  been  born  in  the  Middle  Ages." 

Page  71. — The  Celebrated  Lettei-  of  Pliny. — The  reader 
may  compare  this  letter  with  Trajan's  reply  in  the  Let- 
ters of  the  Younger  Pliny,  translated  by  J.  T.  Lewis, 
London,  1879  (p.  377). 

Page  73. — Pope  Hlldehrand. — For  a  careful  and  un- 
prejudiced history  of  this  great  reformer,  with  abundant 
references  to  other  authorities,  see  Hlldehrand  and  his 
Times  by  the  Rev.  W.  R.  W.  Stephens,  London,  1888  ; 
a  small  but  useful  book.  In  the  Homily  against  Dis- 
obedience and  wilful  Rebellion  some  violent  abuse  of 
Hildebrand  will  be  found. 


NOTES  249 

Page  76. — The  Crusades — Considerate  historians  now 
believe  that  the  two  great  lessons  taught  by  the  crusades 
were  these. — First,  the  more  thoughtful  crusaders  learnt 
that  eastern  infidels,  Jews,  Turks  and  heretics  might  be 
as  good  as  themselves,  and  that  sometimes  it  is  right  to 
regard  our  conduct  toward  our  neighbors  from  points 
of  view  which  priests  are  apt  to  neglect.  Next,  the  citi- 
zens of  western  Euroj^e,  left  to  themselves,  found  they 
could  do  very  well  without  feudalism.  Thus  tlie  air 
was  cleared,  and  people  began  to^  see  how  their  freedom 
from  licensed  robbers,  whether  of  land,  power  or  privi- 
lege might,  perhaps,  one  day  be  accomplished. 

Page  79. — The  Troubadours.— Ouv  best  guides  to  the 
language  and  literature  of  the  Troubadours  are  still  the 
works  of  Fr,  Raynouard,  who  was,  however,  wrong  in  re- 
garding Provencal  as  the  mother,  rather  than  the  sister, 
of  French  and  other  modern  Romance  languages.  His 
Choix  des  poesies  originales  des  Troubadours  is  indispen- 
sable. Taylor's  Lays  of  the  Minnesmgers  and  Trouba- 
dours may  also  be  noted.  Useful  are  the  Essays  on 
Petrarch  by  Ugo  Foscolo.  According  to  Coleridge, 
"  Petrarch  was  the  final  blossom  and  perfection  of  the 
Troubadours."  The  Italian  text  of  Dante's  Purgatorio 
is  curiously  interrupted  (close  of  Canto  XXVI.)  by  eight 
lines  of  Provencal,  spoken  by  the  once-famous  poet  Ar- 
naud. 

Page  80. — Tlie  Mebelungen  Lied. — Carlyle's  review  of 
Simrock's  edition  of  the  Nibelunge,  reprinted  among 
his  Miscellanies,  should  of  course  be  consulted.  It  is 
full  of  information  and  contains  some  very  striking 
specimens  of  his  powers  as  a  translator. 


250  NOTES 


LECTURE  V. 

Page  84, — The  Lombards. — The  etymology  of  their 
name  endorsed  by  Carlyle  is  now  questioned.  Longo- 
bardi  may  mean  (not  long  beards,  but)  those  living  along 
the  border  of  tlie  Elbe,  whence  the  Lombards  are  sup- 
posed to  have  come.  See  a  note  by  Dr.  William  Smith 
to  Vol.  v.,  p.  165  of  his  edition  of  Gibbon. 

As  to  Magna  Grsecia  (mentioned  in  the  same  page) 
most  interesting  details  are  given  by  Fr.  Lenormant,  La 
Grand  Grece — Paysages  et  Histoire  (3  tomes,  Paris,  1881- 
1884).  But  see  further  the  remarks  in  Vol.  III.  (p. 
474)  of  Dr.  Iwan  Miiller's  Handbiich,  to  which  work  we 
have  referred  in  our  Notes  to  Lecture  I. 

Page  86. — Illustrious  Italians. — Desiring  to  occupy 
most  of  his  lecture  with  Dante,  Carlyle  says  nothing  of 
the  two  great  poets,  Tasso  and  Ariosto.  England  has  had 
the  honor  of  publishing  the  best  edition  of  both  Orlan- 
dos  (that  of  Ariosto  and  his  predecessor  Boiardo),  by  the 
learned  Pauizzi.  Neither  does  he  mention  the  Italian 
historians.  On  these  two  topics  much  that  is  valuable 
is  told  us  by  Isaac  D'Israeli  in  his  Curiosities  of  Litera- 
ture, first  and  second  series. 

Carlyle  can  scarcely  be  blamed  for  not  anticipating 
the  advent  of  another  group  of  Italian  worthies,  includ- 
ing those  heroic  or  more  thoughtful  men  of  action,  such 
as  Garibaldi  and  Cavour,  who  have  so  unselfishly 
achieved  the  noble  work  of  liberating  their  country. 

Page  89. — jEschylus,  Dante,  Shakespeare. — Many  will 
demur  to  this  juxtaposition  and  say  that  the  greatest 
poet  of  antiquity  was  Homer,  of  the  Middle  Ages  Dante, 
and  of  modern  times  Goethe ;  Shakespeare  being  '  *  not 


NOTES  251 

for  an  age,  but  for  all  time."  Truly  ^schylus  is  grand, 
but  be  is  not  the  representative  poet  of  Greece,  like  Ho- 
mer. 

Page  90. — Quotations  from  Dante. — To  understand 
these  quotations  we  must  remember  that  the  Inferno 
really  consists  of  three  unequal  regions.  The  first  of 
these,  outside  Dante's  first  circle,  from  which  it  is  sepa- 
rated by  the  river  Acheron,  is  for  the  frivolous,  those 
mean  Laodicean  souls  who  are  neither  cold  nor  hot. 
The  first  circle,  also  called  Limbo,  is  the  i^lace  of  the 
sinless  unhaptized.  It  includes  good  pagans,  many  in- 
fants, and  others.  The  remaining  eight  circles  are  for 
unrepentant  sinners.  The^  incontinent  occujDy  the  four 
circles  (2-5)  which  in  descending  order  succeed' the  first. 
Sins  from  corrupt  will  are  punished  in  the  four  lower 
circles  (6-9),  or  city  of  Dis.  This  main  division  of  the 
wicked  into  two  classes  is  taken  from  the  Ethics  of  Aris- 
totle, as  Dante  himself  (Cantos  VI.  and  XI. )  fully  ex- 
pounds. Dante  is  very  precise,  like  a  professional  engi- 
neer, in  describing  these  circles  and  their  subdivisions. 

The  occupants  of  the  first  circle  are  unpunished;  they 
sigh,  because  eternally  excluded  from  heaven.  The 
frivolous  are  merely  stung,  outwardly  by  insects  and 
from  within  by  their  own  aimless  propensities.  But 
yet  they  are  in  Hell.  Thus,  not  pain  but  hopelessness 
is  the  distinctive  attribute  common  to  every  dweller  in 
the  Inferno,  just  as  repentance  marks  the  Purgatorio, 
and  spiritual  communion  the  Paradiso. 

This  hopelessness  is  characteristically  and  not  un- 
necessarily indicated  three  times  in  the  third  canto. 
First,  by  the  dismal  inscription  above  the  gate  of  Hell, 
applicable  to  whomsoever  it  contains.  Next  (as  quoted 
by  Carlyle),  when  the  case  of  the  frivolous  is  told  by 
Virgil.     Lastly,  Charon  says  to  the  sinners,  before  he 


252  NOTES 

ferries  them  across  the  dark  river,  "  Hope  not  ever  to 
see  heaven." 

Dante  puts  forth  his  gravest  powers  in  this  inimita- 
bly picturesque  canto,  the  only  one  wherein  all  the  in- 
habitants of  the  Inferno  are  presented.  Coleridge  has 
noted  its  "wonderful  profoundness."  The  severe  side 
of  the  poet  is  most  eifectually  displayed  when  he  de- 
picts the  state  of  the  frivolous,  of  those  whose  char- 
acter is  thoroughly  unlike  his  own.  Their  place  is 
never  named.  Not  a  word  of  articulate  speech,  but 
cries  merely,  do  we  get  from  them.  Particular  mention 
is  made  of  one  only,  and  this  is  done  by  way  of  peri- 
phrasis. Dante  himself  scarcely  speaks  of  them.  He 
dismisses  them  with  extreme  contempt  as  "the  set  of 
caitiffs  hateful  to  God  and  to  his  enemies ;  these  scoun- 
drels who  never  were  alive."  With  fine  observation  he 
notices  their  pauseless  pursuit  of  a  flag ;  for  such  spuri- 
ous energy,  by  a  strange  contradiction,  is  often  shown 
by  swarmers  (we  may  see  it  daily  in  our  streets  with 
restless  pleasure-seekers ;  we  may  read  it  on  the  features 
of  giddy  nursemaids,  whirling  along  perambulators  con- 
taining children  for  whom  they  care  nothing).  It  is 
Virgil  who  explains  to  Dante  their  wretched  condition 
— "  This  miserable  mode  those  sad  souls  maintain  who 
lived  without  infamy  and  without  praise.  Mingled  are 
they  with  that  caitiff  choir  of  angels  who  were  not 
rebellious  nor  were  faithful  unto  God  but  were  for 
themselves.  Heaven  chases  them  out,  not  to  be  less 
fair.  Nor  does  deep  Hell  receive  them,  lest  the  wicked 
should  have  from  them  any  glory."  Dante  then  asks — 
"Master,  what  grieves  them  so  much,  that  they  lament 
thus  loudly?"  Virgil  answers — "  I  will  tell  it  thee  very 
briefly.  These  have  no  hope  of  death,  and  their  blind 
life  is  so  low  that  they  are  envious  of  every  other  lot. 
Fame  of  them  the  world  does  not  allow  to  exist.     Mercy 


J 


NOTES  253 

and  justice  disdain  them.  Let  us  not  speak  of  tliem, 
but  look  and  pass." 

This  last  sentence  (Carlyle's  second  quotation)  is  one 
of  those  few  passages  in  which  our  English  gives,  with- 
out loss  of  style,  the  full  meaning  of  the  original ;  the 
monosyllabic  words  reminding  us  of  some  of  Shake- 
speare's most  emphatic  lines,  best  suited  to  solemn  topics, 
like  the — "  Aye  but  to  die  and  go  we  know  not  where  " 
of  Measure  for  Measure. 

When  the  pious  and  gentle  Abbe  de  Saint-Cyran, 
shortly  before  his  death,  wrote,  *'  que  les  foibles  sont 
plus  a  craindre  quelquefois  que  les  mechants,"  he  drew 
a  faint  but  exact  parallel  to  one  side  of  the  powerful 
Dante  {Port-Royal ,  par  Sainte-Beuve,  Livre  2,  xiii.). 

Page  98. — Piirgatorio. — Carlyle  has  elsewhere  reiter- 
ated his  preference  for  the  Purga,torio.  But  he  goes 
too  far  in  attributing  the  greater  attention  commonly 
l^aid  the  Inferno  "  to  our  general  Byronism  of  taste." 
The  Inferno  comes  first  and  must  be  read  first ;  other- 
wise the  Divine  Comedy  is  not  intelligible.  Simply 
throjigh  laziness  or  want  of  leisure  many  fail  to  pursue 
their  studies  beyond  "the  first  song,  which  is  about  the 
sunken."     (Inferno,  XX.,  3.) 

Page  100. — Paradiso. — The  Paradiso  is  more  difficult 
than  the  two  other  songs,  not  in  style  but  in  subject- 
matter,  which  by  its  nature  remains  ethereal,  intangi- 
ble, unearthly.  For  both  Hell  and  Purgatory  belong  to 
our  globe  and  Dante  himself  has  said  in  a  letter — "I 
found  the  original  of  my  Hell  in  the  world  which  we  in- 
habit." (See  Isaac  D'Israeli's  paper  on  "  The  Origin  of 
Dante's  Inferno.")  Yet  has  the  Paradiso  never  quite 
wanted  some  devoted  English  appreciators.  Thus  we 
read  of  young  Hallam,  the  hero  of  In  Memoriam — "  Like 
all  genuine  worshippers  of  the  great  Florentine  poet,  he 


254  NOTES 

rated  the  Inferno  below  the  two  later  portions  of  the 
Divina  Commedia  ;  there  was  nothing  even  to  revolt  his 
taste,  but  rather  much  to  attract  it,  in  the  scholastic 
theology  and  mystic  visions  of  the  Paradiso." 

The  Paradiso  is  so  beautiful  throughout  that  quota- 
tions from  it  lose  much  by  their  removal  from  the  con- 
text, a  sure  sign  of  perfect  works  of  art  (as  with  Mozart's 
operas,  compared  to  those  of  other  composers).  We 
may  refer,  however,  to  one  passage  at  the  opening  of 
Canto  XXVII.  When  Dante  hears  all  Paradise  begin- 
ning to  chant  their  hymn  of  glory  to  the  Trinity,  he 
says — "  that  the  sweet  song  intoxicated  me.  What  I 
saw  seemed  to  me  the  smile  of  the  universe."  He  had 
previously  used  the  same  concept  of  inebriation  to  indi- 
cate the  very  opposite  extreme  of  feeling  in  the  first 
lines  of  Canto  XXIX.  of  the  Inferno,  which  Coleridge 
cites  as  a  chosen  specimen  of  '*  the  endless  subtle  beau- 
ties of  Dante."  We  are  here,  curiously  enough,  re- 
minded of  Byron — 

"  Man,  being  reasonable,  must  get  drunk  ; 
The  best  of  life  is  but  intoxication."  « 

The  reader  should  study  the  instructive  "parallel  be- 
tween Dante  and  Petrarch  "  to  be  found  in  the  Essays  of 
Ugo  Foscolo. 

LECTUEE  VI. 

Page  103. — Galileo. — It  is  insufiBciently  known  that 
Galilei  was  not  only  great  as  a  man  of  science ;  he  is 
also  among  the  most  charming  of  writers.  His  dia- 
logues sparkle  with  the  liveliest  humor.  Asked  why  he 
wrote  so  well,  he  said  he  was  fond  of  reading  Ariosto. 

Galilei  did  more  than  Luther  for  the  cause  of  real  be- 
lief, by  freeing  men's  minds  from  subjection  to  the  tyr- 


i 


NOTES  255 

anny  of  ecclesiastical  opinions.  Luther  and  liis  suc- 
cessors but  endeavored  to  substitute  one  kind  of  priest- 
ly domination  for  another.  Galilei  taught  serious  en- 
quirers how  they  should  begin  if  they  sincerely  wished 
to  study  nature  for  themselves.  Let  the  way  be  cleared 
by  getting  rid  of  prevailing  errors,  that  we  may  see  in 
what  direction  the  truth  lies,  and  then  methodically 
pursue  it.  The  Copernican  point  of  view  was  not  a 
thing  fixed  before  Galilei  entered  on  his  labors.  He  it 
was  who  effectually  subverted  previous  confusing  no- 
tions ;  who  showed  the  remoteness  and  littleness  of  man, 
no  longer  occupying  the  centre  of  all  things,  though 
capable  of  becoming  great  by  the  pious  exercise  of 
those  powers  w^hich  reveal  to  him  his  time  relations  to 
the  universe. 

The  clergy,  from  their  point  of  view,  beheld  the  wide 
firmament  (that  is  to  say,  almost  everything  which  ex- 
ists) as  a  ceiling  stretched  above  man's  unshiuing  abode. 
To  this  restricted  opinion  they  had  adjusted  their  dog- 
mas ;  and  these,  in  the  course  of  time,  were  threatened 
with  the  fate  of  the  worn-out  geocentric  hypothesis.  It 
is  often  now  said  that  we  are  irreligious  because  we 
have  abandoned  our  faith  in  miracles.  Not  so,  but  men 
ask  what  provision  has  been  made  to  save  the  souls  who 
are  on  the  planet  Jupiter  ?  The  Church,  therefore,  was 
right  in  persecuting  Galilei. 

"  The  moral  law,  in  its  api^lication  to  man,  is  not  the 
same,  if  (1)  the  earth  revolves  or  if  (2)  she  is  motionless 
in  space.  Were  she  motionless,  man  evidently  would 
have  the  right  to  believe  himself  the  principal  object  of 
the  Creator's  thoughts  ;  but  she  revolves,  and  hence- 
forth man  is  no  more  than  the  privileged  being  of 
one  of  the  millions  of  worlds  circulating  within  infinite 
space.  That  is  very  different;  and  this  it  is  which  has 
been  perfectly  comprehended  by  the  very  pious  folks  of 


256  KOTES 

a  certain  epoch.  Those  who  condemned  Galileo,  Coper- 
nicus, Giordano  Bruno  .  .  .  were  logical  in  their 
ignorance  :  'tis  this  which  excuses  them.  Piety  did  not 
suifice  to  teach  us  whether  the  earth  revolves  or  not ; 
that,  science  alone  could  do."  (Translated  from  Ana- 
lyse  eUmentaire  de  V  Univers,  par  G.  A.  Hirn,  Paris,  18G8, 
p.  528.) 

Professor  Macli,  of  Prag,  has  given  us  the  best  ac- 
count of  Galilei  as  the  founder  of  modern  dynamics,  the 
worthy  precursor  of  Huyghens  and  Newton.  His  book 
{Die  MecJtanik,  Leipzig,  1883)  contains  a  coj^y  of  the 
fine  old  portrait  of  "  the  Tuscan  artist "  on  whose 
friendly  features  our  own  Milton  was  permitted  to  gaze. 

Men  of  science  are  often  absurdly  contrasted  with 
men  of  literature.  I  feel  it  good  to  remember  that, 
thirty  years  ago,  Mr.  Huxley  was  the  first  person  who 
kindly  explained,  to  me  some  passages  in  Dante,  the 
last  and  the  greatest  of  the  geocentrists. 

Page  106. — Printing. — The  date  of  1450,  assigned  in 
the  text  to  the  full  utilization  of  this  invention,  is  rather 
too  early.  Yet  1440  has  often  been  mentioned,  as  in  the 
Essay  prefixed  to  the  edition  of  Pascal's  Provincial  Let- 
ters published  by  the  elder  Didot. 

Discussions  as  to  the  origin  of  printing  have  a  more 
than  antiquarian  interest,  although  much  of  the  evi- 
dence for  their  exact  treatment  seems  wanting.  We  can 
hardly  deny  that  Gutenberg  was  the  real  inventor  of 
printing.  Poverty  and  his  necessary  dependence  on  ex- 
traneous artistic  aid  threw  him  into  the  hands  of  Fust 
and  Schoeffer,  who  from  Gutenberg's  workshop  issued 
at  Mayence  in  1454  copies  of  the  famous  letters  of  in- 
dulgence, the  first  sheet  printed  from  movable  types 
which  we  are  now  able  to  verify.  At  the  close  of  1455 
or  beginning  of  1456  the  same  pair  published  the  first 
printed  book,  the  so-called  Mazarin  Bible,  which  Guten- 


NOTES  257 

berg  years  before  had  begun.  A  year  later  followed 
their  Psalter  of  1457,  the  first  printed  book  bearing  a 
date.  Gutenberg,  turned  out  of  his  laboratory,  set  up 
another,  and  in  1460  issued  the  Catholicon  of  Balbi. 
The  merit  of  executing  this  work  has  also  been  snatched 
from  Gutenberg  by  some  of  his  pupils  and  others.  The 
slowness  and  secrecy  with  which  he  had  to  labor  not 
only  injured  jDOor  Gutenberg  in  his  life-time,  but  have 
since  tended  to  hurt  his  reputation. 

That  printing  came  late,  that  it  was  not  devised  at  a 
stroke,  that  its  inventor  long  toiled  amid  darkness  and 
difficulties  which  have  obscured  his  nobleness,  his  self- 
abnegation,  his  identity  ;  further,  that  its  products  were 
soon  spread  abroad,  and  that,  unlike  other  arts,  it 
reached  rapidly  a  high  state  of  relative  perfection — need 
not  now  surprise  us.  These  things  are  at  once  ex- 
plained if  we  bear  in  mind  the  many  disciplines,  antece- 
dent and  collateral,  which  this  invention  demands,  and 
consider  the  wonderful  results  it  is  fitted  to  effect  with 
peoples  ready  to  receive  its  influence. 

Page  107. —  Gunpowder. — The  results  of  the  invention 
of  gunpowder,  dispassionately  regarded  as  the  typical 
species  of  the  genus  explosive,  the  editio  princeps  of  a 
classical  gospel  preached  to  moderns  (harmonizing  and 
conflicting,  in  the  most  intricate  manner,  with  the  teach- 
ings of  other  uncontroverted  gospels,  which  appeal  like- 
wise to  the  passions  of  fear,  greed,  or  vanity)  may  be 
viewed  as  they  affect  {a)  professional  fighters  and  (b) 
students  of  history. 

(a)  Napoleon,  a  brilliant  operator  because  he  was  a 
deep  thinker  in  the  art  of  war,  is  here  our  highest  au- 
thority. He  expresses  clearly  his  opinion  that  certain 
qualities  must  have  been  common  to  the  great  generals 
of  all  times,  and  that  they  owed  their  advantages  to  the 
17 


258  NOTES 

exercise  of  these  rather  than  to  fortune.  But  he  says 
further  that,  supposing  the  Elysian  fields  should  send 
back  to  earth  the  choicest  of  the  dead,  less  than  a  day's 
notice  would  enable  Gustavus  Adolphus  or  Turenne  to 
fight  efficiently  a  modern  battle,  while  Alexander,  Csesar, 
or  Hannibal  would  need  at  least  one  or  t^vo  months  to 
study  what  can  be  done  with  gunpowder  ("  Notes  sur 
I'histoire  de  la  Guerre,"  in  Correspondance^  Tome  XXXI., 
p.  501). 

{h)  The  historian,  as  well  as  the  military  man,  will 
reflect  that  the  eff'ects  of  gunpowder  are  twofold — phy- 
sical and  moral.  It  kills  men  at  a  distance,  in  great 
numbers  at  once,  often  with  little  skill,  sometimes  with- 
out danger  to  the  aggressor,  and  usually  by  means 
which  readily  permit  repeated  application.  It  awes 
men  because  it  may  be  used  by  unseen  foes,  because  its 
action  is  swift  and  may  find  them  unprepared,  and  be- 
cause skill  can  do  little  or  nothing  to  thwart  it. 

Hence  the  fear  of  death  or  wounds  thus  produced,  the 
attendant  uncertainty  and  such  circumstances,  immedi- 
ately influencing  the  senses,  as  noise  or  smoke,  over- 
come enemies  rendered  careful  of  lives  which  in  hand- 
to-hand  encounters  they  would  freely  venture. 

Gunpowder  is  merciful,  because  by  it  (1)  battles  are 
soon  decided  and  (2)  victory  cannot  long  be  concealed. 
With  cold  steel  it  is  imperative  that  a  small  disciplined 
army  slaughter  a  considerable  proportion  of  those  op- 
posed to  them.  Eead,  for  example,  the  account  in  Gib- 
bon [Decline,  Chap.  XIX.)  of  the  battle  of  Strasburg, 
fought  A.D.  357  by  the  Emperor  Julian  against  the  fierce 
barbarian  Chnodomar.  It  must  often  have  been  diffi- 
cult for  ancient  conquerors  to  know  when  they  had  won. 
We  should  therefore  dismiss  many  charges  of  cruelty 
brought  against  Csesar  and  other  illustrious  captains  of 
antiquity. 


NOTES  259 

Improvements  of  explosive  weapons  enhance  their 
merciful  tendencies.  On  the  Franco-Prussian  warfields 
in  1870,  with  needle-guns  and  chassepots,  fewer  propor- 
tionally were  shot  than  with  the  flint-muskets  fired  at 
the  battle  of  Albuera  in  1811.  In  this  terrible  engage- 
ment seventy  per  cent,  of  the  victors  were  placed  hors 
de  combat  (Napier's  Penmsular  War,  Book  XII.,  Chajj. 
VI.).^ 

It  is  true  that  non-explosive  like  explosive  weapons 
act  both  on  men's  minds  and  bodies.  But  the  former 
exert  less  influence  morally,  notwithstanding  that,  with 
strict  irony,  they  are  more  sure  in  their  physical  ojDera- 
tion. 

The  spear  and  the  sword  suggest  feudal  times  and 
privileged  persons.  Gunpowder  is  a  leveller,  the  fit 
precursor  of  our  democracy.  The  weakest  can  use  it, 
the  strongest  sufifer  from  it.  Its  action,  like  that  of 
fate,  appears  accidental ;  premeditated  as  to  its  causes, 
its  incidence  is  mechanical.  Thus  it  is  doubly  dreaded. 
It  is  less  horrible  to  be  killed  by  a  man  than  by  a 
machine. 

"  It  has  a  strange  quick  jar  upon  the  ear, 

That  cocking  of  a  pistol,  when  you  know 
A  moment  more  will  bring  the  sight  to  bear 
Upon  your  person,  twelve  yards  off,  or  so." 

Hotspur's  popinjay  was  rightly  frightened  at  "  vile 
guns."  As  the  imj^rovement  of  lethal  weaj^ons  pro- 
gresses, so  does  the  unwillingness  of  men  to  be  hit  by 
them  increase  in  a  more  than  corresponding  ratio  (see 
•'  The  Warfare  of  the  Future,"  by  A.  Forbes,  Nineteenth 
Century,  May,  1891).  Perhaps  in  times  to  come  every 
bullet  will  not  have  its  billet. 

Page  109. — TJie  Spanish  Nation. — Prescott's  Ferdi- 
nand and  Isabella  is  more  instructive  and  appreciative 


260  NOTES 

than  any  other  book  we  can  cite  on  the  leading  facts  in 
the  history  of  Spain  and  the  distinguished  qualities  of  its 
once  eminent  people.  Nor  is  Prescott  despondent  as  to 
the  future  which  may  yet  be  in  store  for  the  Spaniards. 

Page  112. — Mahomet. — Carlyle  refers  to  Mohammed 
from  the  same  point  of  view  in  his  Lectures  on  Heroes. 
Space  fails  us  for  the  discussion  of  this  tempting  and 
very  interesting  topic.  The  reader  is  referred  to  Gib- 
bon's treatment  of  it  (see  Chap.  L.  of  his  Decline,  with 
the  copious  notes  of  Dr.  W.  Smith's  edition)  and  to  the 
learned  Wellhausen's  article  on  Mohammed  (in  the  ninth 
edition  of  the  Ency.  Britannica) . 

That  Mohammed  was  either  a  true  prophet  or  an  im- 
postor (a  deceiver  of  himself  and  others  from  first  to  last) 
states  two  contradictory  opinions  which  in  words  are 
very  easily  expressed,  but  neither  of  which  considerate 
students  can  accept  as  satisfactory.  The  first  of  these 
opinions  receives  some  support  from  facts ;  the  second 
must  be  rejected,  in  spite  of  much  plausible  criticism. 
Neither  Jews,  professing  Christians,  nor  infidels  are  likely 
to  be  fair  Judges  of  Mohammed  as  he  really  was,  unless 
their  minds  are  capable,  in  an  extraordinary  degree,  of 
standing  aside  from  the  j)rejudices  of  education.  The 
intermediate  hypotheses — that  Mohammed  began  in  sin- 
cerity and  ended  in  deception,  or  that  his  whole  life 
shows  a  mixture  of  faith  and  scepticism,  are  somewhat 
more  tenable.  But  they  are  also  more  ambiguous  and 
less  conclusive.  Eather  did  Mohammed  waver,  not  be- 
tween belief  and  doubt,  but  between  belief  as  modified 
by  contem]3lation  or  by  practice.  Like  all  distinguished 
men  he  displays  a  union,  intricate  enough,  of  weakness 
and  strength.  Powerfully  as  he  moulded  many  circum- 
stances by  his  will,  their  force  sometimes  compelled  him 
to  say  things  in  apparent  opposition  to  what  he  thought 


I 


NOTES  2G1 

and  did.  Moses,  too,  was  impeded  in  his  good  inten- 
tions bv  external  necessities,  affecting  men's  minds,  op- 
portunities and  acquired  habits.  We  do  not  sufficiently 
allow  for  the  extreme  sensitiveness  inherent  in  several 
great  men  of  action,  such  as  Caesar,  Mohammed,  and 
Napoleon.  They  may  disguise  this  by  their  power 
of  rapid  reflection,  enabling  them  to  utilize  what  seem 
to  others  defects,  to  derive  fresh  energy  from  the 
high  tension  of  their  repressed  sufferings.  Archbishop 
Whately  [Lessoyis  on  Mind,  p.  174)  indicates  '*  a  sort  of 
intermediate  state  of  mind  between  belief  and  disbe- 
lief." He  illustrates  his  subject  by  reference  to  Cowper's 
poem — "The  Castaway."  This  weak  though  amiable 
and  gifted  man  offers  the  strongest  possible  contrast  to 
Mohammed  ;  but  such  remote  analogies  are,  in  one  essen- 
tial particular,  often  the  truest  of  all.  It  can  scarcely  be 
said  with  truth  that  conviction  implies  the  initial  absence 
of  doubt,  the  power  to  question  the  crude  assumptions 
others  would  impose  on  us.  The  exemplary  hero  of  In 
Memoriam  gathered  strength  and  gained  a  stronger  faith 
by  fighting  his  doubts,  not  by  ignoring  them  ;  but  dog- 
matic theologians  do  not  commend  Hallam's  method. 
The  progress  of  Mohammedanism  after  the  death  of  its 
founder ;  its  persistence  and  extension  to  this  day,  not- 
withstanding hostile  missionaries,  politicians  and  ar- 
mies ;  its  suitability  to  many  and  diverse  peoples — these 
things  declare,  better  than  historical  comments,  how  vast 
was  the  plan  this  man  set  himself  to  devise,  how  exce^D- 
tional  were  the  endowments  by  which  he  achieved  it. 

It  is  well  known  that  Goethe's  mind  was  long  occu- 
pied by  reflections  on  Mohammed,  whom  he  once  in- 
tended to  make  the  hero  of  a  drama  (see  his  Life  by 
Lewes,  Book  III.,  Chap.  4).  He  has  left  us  as  a  h'2ig- 
ment  Mahomet^ s  Gesang.  He  himself  translated  the  Ma- 
homet of  Voltaire,  played  at  the  Weimar  theatre  in  1800. 


262  NOTES 

Heinricli  Heine's  account  {Englische  Fragmente,  XII.) 
of  his  visit  to  the  London  docks  shows  how  genial  is 
the  response  an  appeal  to  the  prophet's  name  can  evoke 
from  believers. 

Page  118. — Humor  of  Cervantes. — In  this  quality  (good 
judges  now  admit)  Cervantes  is  surpassed  by  no  writer. 
The  scene  of  Don  Quixote's  visor  immortalizes  a  recur- 
rent weakness  of  all  reformers. 

Don  Quixote,  Robinson  Crusoe,  and  Gulliver's  Travels 
are  unquestionably  the  masterpieces  of  fiction.  Perhaps 
the  Vicar  of  Wakefield  and  Tom  Jones  should  be  added 
to  the  list.  England,  relatively  weak  in  the  fields  of 
history  and  the  drama  (Shakespeare,  a  mighty  excep- 
tion, deducted),  shines  well  in  this  comparison,  which 
attests  the  glowing  imagination  and  rich  descriptive 
gifts  of  its  best  literary  rejjresentatives.  Still  Do7i  Quix- 
ote remains  the  freshest  of  novels,  if  by  a  name  since 
applied  to  so  many  worthless  productions,  it  may  be 
now  thus  designated. 

Page  119. — Lope  and  Calderon. — A  little  volume — The 
Spanisli  Drama,  181:6,  by  the  late  G.  H.  Lewes,  is  almost 
wholly  devoted  to  a  very  readable  account  of  these  skil- 
ful and  prolific  play-writers. 

Page  120. — Spanish  Literature. — For  a  good  guide  to 
the  authors  Carlyle  does  not  notice  see  the  English 
translation  of  Bouterwek's  History  of  Spanish  and  Por- 
tuguese Literature,  in  two  vols.  1823. 

LECTURE  VII. 

Page  124. — Pytheas. — The  scanty  fragments  left  us 
from  the  lost  writings  of  this  traveller  (whom  Strabo, 
when  he  cites  him,  loves  to  contradict)  are  little  known. 


\ 


NOTES  263 

But  see  the  ''  Eclaircissemens  sur  la  vie  et  les  voyages 
de  Pytlieas  de  Marseille,"  par  M.  De  Bougainville,  in 
Tome  XIX.  of  the  Memoires  de  VAcadcmie  royale  des  In- 
sci'iptions  et  Belles- Lettres. 

Page  ll^.  —  WilUam  Tell— A  chapter  under  this  title, 
showing  how  the  story  about  shooting  the  apple  arose, 
may  be  read  in  Curious  Myths  of  the  Middle  Ages,  by  S. 
Baring-Gould. 

Page  129. — Comines. — Scott  drew  largely  upon  this 
writer  in  the  preparation  of  two  of  his  romances,  Queri- 
tin  Durivard  and  A}i7ie  of  Geierstein.  The  historian  ap- 
pears as  an  acting  personage  in  the  first  of  these  works. 

Page  133. — Luther  found  a  Bible. — His  doing  so,  an 
event  nowise  extraordinary,  has  in  our  time  been  made 
a  subject  for  much  misrepresentation  by  Protestants  of 
the  untruthful  aggressive  sort.  In  The  Dark  Ages,  by 
the  Eev.  S.  K.  Maitland  (a  valuable  book,  lately  re- 
printed), will  be  found  a  clear  account  of  the  matter. 

Page  137. — Ulphilas. — The  significance  of  the  work 
done  by  this  estimable  and  much-abused  bishop  is  well 
explained  in  Max  Mailer's  Science  of  Language. 

Page  138. — Lidher's  words  half  battles. — Jean  Paul  was 
anticij^ated  as  to  his  motive  for  this  comparison.  Quin- 
tilian  says  of  Ceesar,  that  he  seemed  to  speak  as  he  had 
fought. 

Page  138. — Erasmus. — Bayle's  articles  on  Erasmus, 
Ilutten  and  Luther  abound  in  fair  and  instructive  com- 
ments on  many  things  touching  these  reformers.  "What 
Bayle  says  or  suggests,  in  his  very  pleasant  manner,  has 
been  often  in  substance  pilfered  and  clumsily  refitted  to 
suit  the  views  of  those  who  care  more  for  their  own  nar- 
row views  than  for  truth  and  honesty. 


264  NOTES 

Page  141. — EpistolcB  Obscurorum  Virorum. — A  full 
paper  on  these  letters,  with  much  concerning  von  Hut- 
ten,  will  be  found  in  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  Discussions. 


LECTUEE  VIII. 

Page  148. — Mascou. — Geschichte  der  Deutschen  bis 
zum  Abgang  der  Meroving.  Konige,  Leipzig,  1726-37. 
In  2  vols.  4to.  "The  first  German  historian  [says 
Ebert]  who  undertook  to  write  the  history  of  the  nation 
(not  merely  of  the  empire).''  Translated  into  English, 
1737-38. 

Page  148.  —  Saxons.  —  Consult  about  this  people 
Klemm's  GermaniscJie  Alterlhumskunde,  Dresden,  1836, 
and  the  word  Saxa  in  the  Glossarium  of  Du  Cange. 

As  to  Saxon  being  to  this  day  the  Celtic  name  for 
the  English — read  in  the  Life  and  Letters  of  Rowland 
Williams,  D.D.  (Vol.  I.,  p.  179)  how  this  excellent  cler- 
gyman introduced  his  wife  to  his  parishioners,  "  and 
when,  as  in  duty  bound,  they  made  some  complimentary 
speech  (of  course  in  Welsh)  his  reply  in  the  same  lan- 
guage was,  *  Ah,  she  is  only  a  poor  creature ;  she  can 
only  speak  Saesneg ! ' " 

Page  152. — Normans  and  English. — The  spoken  Eng- 
lish language  shows  in  its  grammar  convincing  traces  of 
its  Teutonic  origin,  although,  in  consequence  of  the 
Norman  conquest  and  other  influences,  the  number  of 
Norman  (or  rather  Graeco-Latin)  ivords  our  dictionaries 
contain  is  double  that  from  all  other  sources.  We  call 
English  a  mixed  language  with  much  confusion  of 
thought,  best  dispelled  by  studying  that  serviceable 
book — Max  Miiller's  Science  of  Language. 


NOTES  265 

Page  153. — EUznleth. — If  England,  as  Caiiyle  states, 
was  first  consolidated  under  Queen  Elizabeth's  grand- 
father, so  had  France  gained  the  blessings  of  peace, 
post-offices,  strength  and  union,  when  guided  by  a  far 
greater  ruler,  Louis  XI.,  who  died  two  years  before 
Henry  YII.  came  to  the  throne.  In  that  same  ominous 
year  (1J:83)  of  the  French  king's  death  were  born,  by  a 
strange  conjuncture,  the  pious  artist  Eaphael  and  Lu- 
ther, the  potent  disturber  of  nations.  Euroj^e  was  not 
long  permitted  to  enjoy  quiet.  Yet  England,  as  well  as 
France,  began  at  once  to  progress  as  soon  as  the  former, 
after  the  wars  of  the  Roses,  ceased  interfering  with  the 
affairs  of  the  latter.  When  the  English,  under  the 
younger  Pitt,  resumed  their  meddling  policy,  in  sup- 
port of  the  wretched  Bourbons  whom  they  could  not 
keep  on  their  thrones,  much  misery  for  both  peoples 
was  again  brought  about.  And  we  are  still  galled  by  the 
weight  of  debt  and  taxes  then  imposed  on  us. 

Page  154:. — Shakespeare. — The  essential  resemblance 
of  Shakespeare  to  Homer,  in  spite  of  obvious  distinc- 
tions, is  not  the  vain  thing  spurious  criticism  would 
make  it.  Both  combine  ease  and  strength,  subtlety  and 
naivete  of  expression,  in  a  mode  only  possible  to  artists 
of  the  highest  genius. 

That  Shakespeare  indulged  in  conceits  of  language, 
after  the  manner  of  the  Spanish  and  Italian  dramatists, 
is  undeniable.  But  so  did  the  severe  Dante.  Playful- 
ness in  the  handling  of  words  pleases  expectant  hear- 
ers, reveals  while  it  conceals  the  gi-eater  skill  of  the 
master,  relieves  his  tension  of  mind,  not  unbecomingly 
places  him  on  a  level  with  his  audience,  and  above  all  is 
necessaiy  to  the  contrasted  effect  of  those  serious  pas- 
sages he  must  introduce. 


266  NOTES 

Page  156. — Poet  and  T^m^er.— No  considerate  person 
Disposes  the  poet  to  the  thinker,  for  thought  involves 
sentiment  and  will  as  well  as  iDurely  intellectual  pro- 
cesses. (See  Wundt,  System  der  Philosophie,  LeijDzig, 
1889,  p.  41.) 

Coleridge  {Notes  and  Lectures  upoyi  Shakespeare,  p.  6) 
says — "Poetry  is  not  the  proper  antithesis  to  prose,  but 
to  science.  Poetry  is  opposed  to  science,  and  prose  to 
metre."  But  is  it  not  more  correct  to  distinguish 
science,  strictly  so  called,  from  art  in  general  ?  And  is 
there  not  a  still  more  real  distinction  between  conscious 
logical  operations  of  the  mind  and  those  imaginative 
gifts  by  which  both  the  poet  and  the  man  of  science  may 
profit  ? 

Page  159. — The  greatest  men  quiet. — The  finest  proof 
of  this  truth  is  afforded  by  one  of  the  greatest  of  all 
writers,  Caesar,  to  those  who  are  caj^able  of  reading  him 
between  the  lines.  The  brief  gentle  references  of  this 
powerful  man  of  action  to  the  blunders  of  his  subordi- 
nates, the  quiet  way  in  which  he  passes  over  his  own  ex- 
ploits, his  manner  of  speaking  (or  rather,  not  speaking) 
of  himself  are  at  once  delightful  and  awful.  No  so- 
called  religious  loader  has  ever  gained  victories  over 
others  and  himself  like  those  of  this  immortal  pagan 
conqueror.  I  could  name  two  men  of  genuine  ability, 
both  of  humble  origin,  unprejudiced  and  unspoilt  by 
books,  who  felt  almost  inclined  to  worship  Csesar's  bust 
in  the  British  Museum.  The  age  of  heroism  is  not 
dead,  so  long  as  this  is  possible.  Eead  what  the  late 
Eichard  Jefferies  says  of  Caesar's  lineaments  in  TJie  Story 
of  my  Heart. 

Page  160. — John  Knox. — The  character  of  Knox  will 
scarcely  be  upheld  by  Carlyle's  eulogies.  We  may  will- 
ingly recognize  his  unusual  courage  ;  such  men  are  rare. 


NOTES  267 

and  he  who  is  not  a  coward  fairly  claims  our  praise. 
But  Catiline  also  was  a  very  courageous  man.  Hume's 
History  tells  us  how  Knox  successively  persecuted  two 
queens,  Mary  of  England  and  Mary  Queen  of  Scots. 
As  an  indication  of  his  unrivalled  coarseness  of  language 
read  *'  The  first  blast  of  the  ti-umpet  against  the  mon- 
strous regiment  of  women."  To  learn  his  powers  of 
tergiversation  (for  Knox,  with  his  scholastic  training, 
could  play  the  logician's  part,  denounced  in  others  by 
Carlyle  as  antagonistic  to  sincere  belief)  consider  how 
he  afterward  behaved  when  Queen  Elizabeth  came  to 
the  throne.  Maury  {Essai  sin-  les  Legendes  Fieuses  du 
Moyeyi-age)  indeed  says  that  Knox  "  etait  un  hallucine." 
See  his  article  in  Bayle  and  what  is  told  of  him  by  the 
Kev.  S.  K.  Maitland,  in  his  Essays  on  the  Reformation. 

Page  165. — Milton. — Milton  loved  what  was  good  in 
the  Puritans,  but  he  who  sung  of  dim  religious  light 
and  of  St.  Peter  shaking  his  mitred  locks  could  not  be 
a  Puritan  at  heart.  Or  rather,  the  pious  author  of 
Adam's  evening  i^rayer  {Paradise  Lost,  IV.,  720-735), 
than  which  David,  Isaiah  and  other  prophets  of  old 
have  not  left  us  more  inspired  utterances,  was  the 
only  true  Puritan  of  his  time,  compared  to  whom  nomi- 
nal Puritans  are  but  as  stubble.  Milton,  like  Schiller, 
was  a  real  lover  of  liberty,  without  being  an  anarchist. 
In  this  respect  he  was  superior  to  Carlyle,  who  shows 
himself  an  oligarch  whenever  he  deliberately  states  his 
political  opinions  and  is  full  of  that  morgue  aristo- 
cratique  which  Napoleon  declared  to  be,  next  to  money- 
making,  the  highest  creed  of  Englishmen,  of  middle- 
class  Englishmen  most  of  all.  The  American  descend- 
ants of  the  Puritans  still,  in  secret,  cultivate  this  weed. 
The  French,  the  Swiss  and  the  Dutch  are  comj^arative- 
ly  free  from  it.     So  long  as  Germany  cherishes  it,  its 


268  NOTES 

unity  will  be  spurious ;  with  all  its  strength  and  disci- 
pline, it  will  have  this  disadvantage,  should  it  fight  its 
internally  unfettered  antagonist.  Strange  irony  of  fate — 
that  the  least  and  the  most  despotic  of  the  great  Euro- 
pean powers,  the  first  liberators  and  the  last  persecutors 
of  the  Jews,  should  now  be  united  against  that  nation 
in  which  feudalism  maintains  an  influence  out  of  con- 
cert with  the  enlightenment  and  strong  character  of  its 
hitherto  unconquered  inhabitants. 

LECTUEE  IX. 

Mr.  Anstey  was  hindered  by  an  attack  of  malaria  from 
attending  Carlyle's  ninth  lecture.  The  reader,  while  re- 
gretting the  absence  of  his  reporter,  will  console  him- 
self with  the  reflection  that  this  lecture  has  been  lost 
rather  than  any  of  the  others.  What  the  lecturer  had 
to  say  on  French  literature  may  well  be  conjectured  from 
the  long  papers  on  Diderot  and  Voltaire,  reprinted  in 
his  Miscellanies. 

Strongly  sympathizing,  as  did  Carlyle,  wdth  certain 
aspects  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  powerfully  as  he 
has  represented  several  of  its  scenes,  he  never  could 
rightly  appreciate  French  views  of  things.  We  regret 
here  to  find  him  in  good  company ;  for  Coleridge,  De 
Quincey,  and  many  worthy  English  authors  exhibit  a 
like  deficiency. 

LECTURE  X. 

Page  169.  —  Quota/ ion  from  Ooellie. — But  Goethe  also 
said,  '*  My  inheritance,  how  wide,  how  fair !  Time  is 
my  estate  ;  to  Time  I'm  heir." 

Page  171. — Reign  of  Quackery. — Carlyle  might  have 
added  that  nowhere  is  the  doctrine  that  money  will  buy 


NOTES  269 

money's  worth  move  practised  than  in  the  land  of  the 
almighty  dollar,  the  free  country  of  the  free  children  of 
his  favorite  Puritans,  who  sought  (as  a  female  poet, 
with  impious  humor,  has  sung)  "freedom  to  worship 
God,"  that  is,  to  split  into  as  many  denominations  as 
they  pleased.  See,  inter  alia,  Dickens'  American  Notes. 
This  multiplicity  of  sects,  Archdeacon  Farrar  tells  us, 
is  to  be  taken  as  a  sure  sign  of  sincerity.  A  more  suc- 
cessful preacher  of  the  modern  gospel  of  Mammon,  Mr. 
Jay  Gould,  improves  its  text  by  inserting  a  trifling  mar- 
ginal gloss  ;  for  money  now  buys  what  is  not  money's 
worth.  He  means  "  L'argent  des  autres,"  to  quote  Ga- 
boriau.  For  has  not  Mr.  Gould  honestly  declared  that 
without  outsiders  (the  great  host  of  worshippers  who, 
with  innocent  and  touching  credulity,  like  all  true  be- 
lievers, kiss  the  rod  and  rejoice  when  they  are  robbed) 
speculators  on  the  Stock  Exchange,  the  high  priests  of 
the  temple  in  Wall  Street,  would  certainly  stai-ve  ?  The 
demon  of  credit  (called  by  Addison  a  goddess  !)  sitting 
on  his  stool  in  the  infernal  counting-house,  must  view 
with  an  evil  eye  these  ready-money  transactions. 

Carlyle's  second  doctrine  (taken  from  Byron),  that 
Pleasure  is  pleasant,  holds  true,  but  chiefly  for  begin- 
ners and  fresh  converts.  It  is  milk  for  babes.  Happily, 
pleasure  soon  palls  uj^on  those  who  get  more  than  their 
share  of  it,  and  thus  the  distribution  less  of  pleasure  than 
of  pain  is  more  equable  in  our  life  than  the  ignorant  sup- 
pose. Philippe  de  Comines,  commenting  on  the  King's 
death,  says — "  Poor  and  mean  folks  ought  to  have  little 
hope  about  this  world,  since  so  great  a  king  suffered 
and  toiled  so  much,  and  could  not  find  one  hour  to  push 
off  his  death,  whatever  diligence  he  knew  to  make  " 
{Memoires^,  VI.,  Chap.  XIII.).  And  again  he  writes  {Ibid. 
VIII.,  Chap.  XIII.  Note  the  ominous  number  of  the 
chapter  in  both  books) — "No  creature  is  exempt  from 


270  NOTES 

suffering,  and  all  eat  their  bread  in  pain  and  grief. 
Our  Lord  promised  it  when  he  made  mankind  and  has 
loyally  kept  it  with  all  people.  But  pains  and  griefs 
are  different ;  those  of  the  body  are  the  least,  and  those 
of  the  understanding  the  greatest ;  those  of  the  wise  are 
of  one  sort,  those  of  fools  of  another.  Yet  too  much 
grief  and  suffering  afflicts  the  fool  like  the  sage  (though 
to  many  it  seems  the  contrary),  and  he  has  less  consola- 
tion. Poor  x^eople  (who  toil  and  plough,  to  feed  them- 
selves and  their  children,  and  pay  taxes  and  subsidies 
to  their  lords)  ought  to  live  in  great  discomfort,  if  great 
princes  and  lords  had  all  the  world's  pleasures,  and 
they  toil  and  misery;  but  things  go  on  quite  otherwise." 

Page  173. — Speech  and  Silence. — The  saying  quoted 
by  Carlyle  is  an  old  oriental  one,  though  it  has  had 
many  modern  editions.  Thus  Schleiermacher  says,  in 
praise  of  a  great  scholar — "  Bekker  is  silent  in  seven 
languages." 

Page  11^.— Whitfield.— K  favorable  view  of  Whitfield 
is  taken  by  Lord  Malion  (Stanhope)  in  Chapter  XIX.  of 
his  History  of  England. 

Page  177. — Steele. — Thackeray  has,  perhaps  better 
than  any  other  writer,  said  a  good  word  for  the  neglect- 
ed Steele,  whose  fine  panegyric  on  one  woman  well 
rivals  the  more  famous  quotations  made  from  Petrarch 
or  Dante  on  like  subjects.  We  love  Steele ;  we  praise, 
but  seldom  read  Addison. 

Page  179. — Swift. — Carlyle  refers  here  to  the  lines  in 
Johnson's  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes — 

"From  Marlborough's  eyes  the  tears  of  dotage  flow. 
And  Swift  expires  a  driveller  and  a  show." 


NOTES  271 

It  is  cruel  to  quote  them.  The  beauty  and  strength  of 
Swift's  unsurpassed  prose  are  the  product  of  a  clear  in- 
tellect and  a  genuine  (if  not  always  apparent)  fineness 
of  feeling,  rarely  found  united  in  Englishmen.  Swift  is 
too  honest  not  to  show  us  his  faults  ;  we  therefore  the 
more  willingly  pardon  them.  A  Tale  of  a  Tub  demands 
his  canonization  by  Anglicans,  could  they  see  how  true 
and  badly  treated  a  friend  they  had  in  him.  His  Gulli- 
ver's Travels,  the  charmer  of  our  childhood,  the  in- 
structor and  amuser  of  our  later  years,  is  simply  (we 
speak  advisedly)  the  best  work  of  pure  imagination  ever 
put  forth,  after  the  Divine  Comedy  of  Dante.  The 
genius  of  Bunyan,  in  sj^ite  of  his  high  theme,  does  not 
so  impress  us,  with  all  his  allegorical  names  and  char- 
acters. But  in  reading  Swift  and  Dante  their  perfect 
style  is  forgotten,  because  it  is  perfect ;  we  think  only 
of  the  real  things  they  describe  and  the  characters  who 
act  again,  in  our  presence.  We  are  not  told  that  Ca- 
paneus  A*ages  ;  we  hear  him  vagmg.  We  become  Lili- 
putians  ourselves  when  the  Emj^eror  of  Liliput  ap- 
pears. "  He  is  taller,  by  almost  the  breadth  of  my 
nail,  than  any  of  his  court,  which  aJone  is  enough  to 
strike  an  awe  into  the  beholders."  Great  is  the  power 
of  words,  in  themselves  the  idlest  things,  when  used  by 
a  master. 

Page  179. — Sterne. — Sterne  (like  Rabelais,  whom  in 
many  respects  he  resembles  less  than  critics  pretend) 
is,  in  one  word,  indescribable.  He  should  be  read,  not 
criticised.  He  has  certainly  some  of  the  merits  of  Cer- 
vantes and  Swift ;  his  humor  is  as  exquisite,  but  very 
different  and  all  his  own.  Coleridge,  strange  to  say, 
has  best  commented  on  him  (a  Course  of  Lectures,  IX., 
in  Vol.  II.  of  his  Notes).  Dr.  Slop,  Corporal  Trim,  the 
Widow  Wadman,  and  Uncle  Toby  are  quite  as  real  to  us 


272  NOTES 

as  Don  Quixote  himself.  The  improprieties  of  Sterne 
are  indeed  provoking,  but  we  pity  those  who  see  not 
the  refinement  which  lies  beside  them.  In  subtlety 
of  conception  and  expression  the  character  of  Mr. 
Shandy  is  worthy  of  Shakespeare.  We  praise  many 
books  more  ;  but  there  are  few  we  would  not  part  with 
for  a  comfortable  fireside  copy  of  the  inimitable  Tris- 
tram Shandy. 

Page  179. — Pope. — An  afi'ected  contempt  for  Pope, 
whom  they  do  not  understand,  is  one  of  the  symptoms 
common  to  a  sickly  class  of  modern  essayists,  who  spin 
weak  cobwebs  about  him  from  their  own  ailing  moral 
interior.  Byron  knew  better  when  he  called  Pope  "a 
poet  of  a  thousand  years."  He  is  not  to  be  spoken  of 
in  the  same  breath  with  the  other  poets  of  Queen 
Anne's  contemptible  reign.  His  Essay  on  Criticism  re- 
mains a  marvellous  performance,  though  written  in  his 
twentieth  year.  Notwithstanding  Hallam's  pseudo-pla- 
tonic  criticism  [Literatia^e  of  Europe,  Chap.  I.)  Eloisa  to 
Ahelard  most  touchingly  expresses  the  feelings  of  one 
of  the  truest  of  women,  while  the  immortal  Dunciad 
asks  in  vain  for  a  twin-brother,  to  stigmatize  the  obtru- 
sive pretenders  to  fame  swarming  in  our  nineteenth 
century. 

Page  182. — Johnson  and  Boswell. — The  reader  should 
again  compare  Carlyle's  essay  on  Johnson  with  that  of 
Macaulay,  and  note  well  the  superiority  of  the  former. 

The  recent  edition  of  Bosrcell  by  Dr.  Hill  treats  this 
masterpiece  of  biography  with  unusual  care  and  sym- 
pathy. 

Page  182. — Hume. — Hume  (against  all  differences  of 
opinion)  ranks  with  Malebranche  in  France  and  Leibnitz 
in  Germany  as  one  of  the  few  modern  writers  who,  like 


NOTES  273 

Plato  and  Cicero  among  the  ancients,  know  how  to 
make  philosophy  agreeable.  See  the  edition  of  his 
works  in  four  vols.,  by  Green  and  Grose. 

Page  184. — Robertson. — Eobertson  is  the  baby  Carlyle 
flings  to  the  wolves,  that  he  may  save  the  rei^utation 
of  other  Scotchmen  whom  he  always  pets.  Even  our 
James  I.  (his  James  VI.)  won  his  admiration. 

Page  185. — Gibbon. — Gibbon,  the  only  Englishman 
who  has  united  German  learning  with  French  grace,  is 
less  understood  by  Carlyle  than  by  many  of  the  ortho- 
dox, admirers  of  the  finely  tempered  weaj^on  that 
wounds  them.  Carlyle  used  more  moderate  language 
in  talking  to  Emerson.  *'  Gibbon  he  called  the  splendid 
bridge  from  the  old  world  to  the  new."  He  is  still  the 
only  general  historian  for  the  whole  period  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.  Unfortunately  the  latest  and  best  annotated 
edition  of  his  Decline  has  penuriously  been  printed  on 
very  poor  pajDer. 

LECTUKE  XI. 

Page  187. — Inadequacy  of  Logic. — What  Carlyle  here 
states  resembles,  more  closely  perhaj^s  than  he  might 
have  wished,  the  opinions  set  forth  on  the  same  subject 
by  Cardinal  Newman,  with  all  his  characteristic  charm 
of  expression  (see  An  Essay  in  Aid  of  the  Grammar  of 
Assent). 

Page  193. —  Wei-ter  and  Charlotte  on  Tea-cups. — In  the 
poem  expressive  of  gratitude  to  his  kind  friend  and 
patron  the  Duke  of  Weimar,  among  his  Roman  elegies, 
Goethe  thus  wrote — 

"  Yet  what  avails  it  me,  that  indeed  the  Chinese,  too, 
Painted,  with  careful  hand,  Werter  and  Lotte  on  glass." 
18 


274  NOTES 

This  translation  is  literal.  But  see  the  whole  poem, 
with  much  else  that  is  enjoyable,  in  Mrs.  Austin's  Char- 
acteristics of  Goethe,  3  vols.,  London,  1833, 

Page  195. — The  Works  of  Byron. — Byron  never  seri- 
ously said  that  the  world  was  a  place  not  worthy  for 
generous  men  to  live  in.  He  says  quite  the  contrary. 
Upbraiding  the  degenerate  inhabitants  of  the  beautiful 
land  of  Greece,  before  it  regained  its  freedom,  he  refers 
to  the  time  "  when  man  was  Worthy  of  thy  clime."  In 
the  same  poem  (see  the  delicious  verses  at  the  beginning 
of  The  Giaour)  he  often  expresses  the  same  sentiment. 
For  example — 

"  Strange — that  where  Nature  loved  to  trace, 
As  if  for  Gods,  a  dwelling  place, 
And  every  charm  and  grace  hath  mix'd 
Within  the  paradise  she  fix'd, 
There  man,  enamour'd  of  distress, 
Should  mar  it  into  wilderness." 


And  again- 


'  So  soft  the  scene,  so  form'd  for  joy, 
So  curst  the  tyrants  that  destroy." 


The  burning  stanzas  of  his  inspiriting  Isles  of  Greece  ex- 
quisitely display  the  same  conviction. 

Page  196.  —  Goetz  von  Berlichingen. — Sir  Walter  Scott 
translated,  not  well,  this  poem,  in  which  the  characters 
are  thoroughly  alive,  and  which  Goethe  wrote  as  a  young 
man  beginning  to  show  his  strength,  and  anxious  for  a 
while  to  save  his  mind  from  the  oppression  caused  by 
the  symptoms  of  weakness  he  saw  around  him.  Goetz 
is  the  pendant  to  Werter.  It  expresses  the  mediaeval 
spirit,  as  against  the  modern.  Goetz  struggles  to  the 
last;  Werter  is  worn  out.     The  truth  is  that  Goethe, 


NOTES  275 

writing  these  poems  out  of  his  heart,  in  quick  succes- 
sion, split  his  own  comi3lex  being  into  two  characters, 
the  man  of  contemplation  and  the  man  of  action.  In 
Faust  this  double  theme  is  again  taken  up  on  a  much 
greater  scale,  both  as  to  extent  and  intricacy,  and  with 
far  more  refined  mental  resources. 

Those  who  neglect  Werter's  Leiden,  fearing  it  should 
prove  too  melancholy,  are  deceived.  It  contains  not  a 
few  bright  thoughts  and  many  charming  descri^jtions  of 
external  nature. 

Page  200. —  The  Diamond  NecMace. — The  reader  will, 
doubtless,  turn  to  Carlyle's  paper  on  this  matter  (re- 
printed in  his  Miscellanies),  and  to  the  well-known  ro- 
mance of  Alexandre  Dumas  {Le  collier  de  la  reine).  The 
English  *'  Baccarat  scandal "  of  1891  might,  like  the  affair 
of  the  Diamond  Necklace  (which  it  more  resembles  than 
at  first  appears),  have  caused  mischief,  had  attendant 
circumstances  aided.  It,  too,  was  a  spark,  which  by 
good  luck  did  not  fall  upon  gunpowder. 

Page  200. — Rousseau. — For  an  instructive  and  very 
pleasantly  written  lecture  on  Bousseau,  which  many  of 
our  readers  have  probably  not  seen,  we  cite  the  title  of 
Emil  Du  Bois-Eeymond's  "  Friedrich  II.  uud  Jean- 
Jacques  Rousseau,"  in  his  Reden,  erste  Folge,  Leipzig, 
1886. 

As  Rousseau,  like  Don  Quixote  (see  the  English 
translation  of  Griesinger's  Mental  Diseases,  p.  10),  with 
all  his  exquisite  genius,  reminds  us  of  those  who  belong 
to  the  so-called  borderland  between  sanity  and  insanity, 
we  may  refer  also  to  J.-J.  Rousseau's  Krankheitsgeschichte 
von  P.  J.  MObius,  Leipzig,  1889.  See,  likewise,  the 
somewhat  rare  Expose  succinct  de  la  contestation  qui 
s'est  elevee  entre  M.  Hume  et  M.  Rousseau,  avec  les 
pieces  justificatives  (a  Londres,  1766),  and   Mr.   John 


276  NOTES 

Morley's  welcome  Life  of  this  eminent  French  writer. 
Diseased  nerves,  in  si)ite  of  Carlyle's  protest,  sometimes 
offer  the  only  true  explanation  of  the  strange  conduct  of 
great  men. 

Page  201. — Tlie  French  Revolution. — For  a  calm  and 
hopeful  discussion,  written  with  much  eloquence,  of  the 
ideas  suggested  by  a  study  of  the  three  French  revolu- 
lutions  (1789-1830-1848)  every  reader  should  think  over 
Ernest  Renan's  UAvenir  de  la  Science :  Pensees  de  1848. 
Paris,  1890. 

Page  203. — Europe  and  France. — Carlyle  is  not  con- 
sistent in  asserting  the  right  of  Europe  against  France, 
while  he  commends  Napoleon's  maxim  of  "  the  career 
open  to  talents."  The  English  and  the  Germans  threat- 
ened France  in  the  first  instance,  and  caused  a  misery 
more  widespread  than  that  of  the  French  Revolution  it- 
self, by  their  vicious  intromission  in  the  affairs  of  a  peo- 
ple with  which  they  had  no  concern.  The  two  Teutonic 
i^ations,  in  fact  if  not  in  right,  were  consistent  enough. 
Whatever  they  might  say,  they  showed  by  their  actions 
they  preferred  to  freedom  that  slavery  to  oligarchical 
governments  it  was  the  chief  business  of  the  French 
Revolution  to  put  down.  These  things  began  before 
Buonaparte.  It  is  wrong  to  look  on  him  as  an  upset- 
ter  of  the  principles  of  the  Revolution.  He  indeed 
saved  France  from  anarchy,  restored  religion,  and  raised 
that  nation  to  a  height  of  power  it  never  reached  before 
or  since.  But  was  he  not  a  promulgator  from  the  can- 
non's mouth  of  the  gi'eat  revolutionary  maxim  Carlyle  so 
much  admires  ?  And  was  it  not  their  terror  lest  Europe 
in  general  should  find  this  maxim  too  captivating,  that 
made  its  rulers  send  their  misguided  hosts  against  the 
preacher  of  a  doctrine  which,  once  taught,  meant  the 
destruction  of  all  oligarchy  ? 


NOTES  277 

Napoleon  said,  that  John  Bull  in  the  end  "wonld  do 
him  justice.  Has  not  the  chief  recorder  (Gen.  Sir  W. 
Napier)  of  Wellington's  victories  emphatically  asserted 
the  incomparable  superiority  of  his  Corsican  opponent  ? 
Did  not  our  Queen  appear  in  public  leaning  on  the  arm 
of  the  nephew  of  her  grandfather's  enemy,  and  has 
not  the  son  of  the  same  nephew  since  died  in  her  ser- 
vice? 

LECTURE   XII. 

Page  207. — Return  to  Nature. — This  is  precisely  the 
advice  of  the  leading  interlocutor  in  Galilei's  DialogOy 
published  in  1632  (not  1630  as  stated  by  Whewell, 
whose  account,  in  his  Inductive  Sciences,  of  this  first  of 
modern  philosophers  is  very  far  from  being  the  best). 
Besides  Mach's  chapter  on  Galilei,  already  recommended 
(under  p.  103),  see  Poggeudorffs  Gescliichte  der  Physik, 
Leipzig,  1879,  pp.  204:-2-45,  and  Heller's  Gescliichte  der 
Phi/sil;  Stuttgart,  1882,  I.  Band,  pp.  343-383.  Also, 
the  German  translation  of  i)art  of  Galilei's  Biscorsi 
(1638),  forming  No.  11  of  Ostwald's  Klassiker  der  exacten 
Wissenschaften,  Leij^zig,  1890.  Galilei  may  be  called 
the  Homer,  while  Newton  is  the  Shakespeare  of  dynam- 
ics. Huyghens  (the  "  Summus  Hugenius "  of  our 
Newton,  a  man  not  prone  to  distribute  praise)  is  its 
Sophocles.  The  merits  of  Huyghens  are  well  set  forth 
not  only  by  Mach,  but  also  by  Diihring  in  his  very 
original  Kritische  Geschichte  der  Meclianik,  3  ed.  LeijDzig, 
1887. 

Page  208.— TAe  Phoenix— ^hai  Carlyle  says  of  the 
end  or  consummation  of  scepticism  viiW  be  consoling  to 
many,  but  it  is  not  the  view  of  theologians  and  logi- 
cians, for  whom  he  never  cared.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Mo- 
merie,  who  belongs  to  both  these  classes  (a  union  some- 


278  KOTES 

what  rare),  tells  us  that  those  who  still  cling  to  their 
earl  J  faith  "are  every  now  and  then  pained,  embarassed, 
staggered,  by  the  fact  that  so  many  of  their  intellectual 
superiors  consider  their  faith  to  be  absurd.  The  spirit 
of  agnosticism  is  in  the  air.  The  reviews  are  full  of  it. 
Poi3ular  lecturers  are  everywhere  insisting  upon  it.  We 
meet  it  in  novels,  and  even  in  poetry.  At  the  universi- 
ties it  is  the  predominant  creed  among  the  undergradu- 
ates and  the  younger  dons.  And,  worst  of  all,  we  hear 
it  sometimes  in  drawing-rooms  from  women's  lips — from 
women,  strange  to  say,  who  are  young  and  fair,  who  are, 
or  should  be,  hapiw  "  {Agnosticism,  3  ed.  revised,  1889). 
We  all  wish,  like  the  Phoenix,  to  rise  again  from  our 
ashes,  but  it  is  not  quite  so  pleasant  to  be  reminded  that 
ashes  must  again  and  again  be  our  doom.  This  series 
of  transvolutions,  which  Carlyle  promises  us,  savors 
rather  of  Indian  than  Christian  belief.  In  his  too  em- 
l^hatic  declaration  of  our  ignorance  (p.  188),  in  itself 
sufficiently  real,  he  goes  beyond  poor  Ophelia  (Hamlet, 
Act  IV.,  Scene  V.)  in  her  frenzy, — "Lord,  we  know 
what  we  are,  but  we  know  not  what  we  may  be." 

We  would  point  out  the  frequent  error  of  using  "scep- 
tic "  as  a  synonym  for  the  words  "agnostic"  or  "infidel." 
Sceptics  are  extremely  rare.  We  hardly  know  of  any 
beside  Montaigne,  Bayle,  Hume  (perliai3S  Gibbon  and 
Mill,  father  and  son),  with  Fontenelle — all  delightful 
writers.  Pascal,  that  matchless  writer,  had  also  his 
sceptical  side.  He  is  finely  discriminated  by  Paul  Bour- 
get  as  the  only  apologist  for  orthodoxy  who  ever  under- 
stood doubters.  Most  defenders  of  Christianity,  laud- 
ably desiring  to  slay  the  errors  of  their  opi^onents,  dis- 
charge their  missiles  at  everything  excej)t  the  mark. 
They  failed  by  not  discovering  the  sources  of  conviction 
and  its  opposites.  They  hit  the  ambient  air.  Archbishop 
Whately  and  Cardinal  Newman  have  indicated  some  of 


1 


NOTES  279 

these  faults  of  method,  but  they  themselves  in  practice 
have  likewise  failed.  Of  living  eminent  writers  we  may 
name  as  sceptics  the  fervid  Eenan  and  the  acute  Du 
Bois-Eevmond.  Among  those  lately  deceased  we  might 
also  designate  as  sceptical,  in  the  best  and  truest  sense, 
one  of  the  choicest  geniuses  of  our  time,  a  discoverer 
comparable  to  Newton,  the  pious  Gustav  Theodor 
Fechner.  Carlyle,  without  knowing  it,  was  himself  a 
sceptic. 

Page  212. — Happiness. — Carlyle,  as  so  many  know,  has 
expressed  noble  thoughts  on  the  signification  of  happi- 
ness in  the  most  remarkable  chapter  of  his  Sartor 
Resartus  (Book  IL,  ChajD.  IX.).  His  friend,  John  Stuart 
Mill,  referring  to  these  views,  has  modified  them  from 
his  own  experience  [Autohiography,  pp.  132-143).  His 
theory,  strange  as  this  may  sound,  is  veiy  like  the  only 
true  and  pious  one  ;  it  is,  in  fact,  a  moonlight  reflection 
of  it.  We  may,  in  our  ingratitude,  reject  the  happiness 
offered  to  us  ;  but  hai3piness  is  not  to  be  snatched  by  our 
own  efforts.  It  comes  to  us  like  genius,  beauty  (Iliadis, 
III.,  65),  or  sleep  (Psalm,  cxxviii.  2).  It  is  a  gift  from 
on  high. 

Vfx^e  21"^.  — German  Metaphysicians. — We  fully  admit 
the  inherent  difficulties  of  metaphysics,  and  the  further 
difficulties  superinduced  by  many  painstaking  German 
writers  and  others  ;  but  Carlyle' s  views  of  both  defy  our 
powers  of  annotation.  They  are  more  incomprehensible 
than  metaphysics  themselves. 

The  best  modern  works  on  i:)hiIosophy  are  unquestion- 
ably the  very  original  and  critical  writings  of  Wundt, 
namely,  his  Psychologie,  Logik,  Ethik,  System  der  Philos- 
apJiie,  and  Studien,  which  last  is  a  most  useful  periodi- 
cal by  himself  and  others  on  all  topics  ajipertaining  to 
things  of  the  mind.     These  books  we  have  bought  and 


280  NOTES 

read  (let  others  do  likewise).  They  could  not,  their 
dates  being  considered,  have  come  within  Carlyle's  cog- 
nizance. A  little  more  patience  in  dealing  with  such 
subjects  would  have  done  our  Lecturer  no  harm.  Meta- 
physics were  certainly  not  C'M'lyle^s  forte,  though  he  has 
strangely  been  cited  as  a  promulgator  of  idealism.  He 
errs  in  blaming  metaphysic  for  failing  to  supj^ly  that 
which  (like  a  custom-house)  it  can  never  afford. 

Page  216. — Goethe. — Carlyle  has  said  so  much  that  is 
good  about  Goethe,  that  no  one  who  possesses  his  works 
needs  the  particular  references  which  are  here  omitted. 
He  is  at  his  best  whenever  he  treats  of  him.  Between 
Goethe  and  Englishmen  he  still  remains  the  one  indis- 
pensable medium. 

Page  217. —  Westostliclier  Divan. — See  Simrock's  edi- 
tion (Heilbronn,  1875)  of  this  incomparable  work,  with 
its  references  to  the  original  eastern  sources  from  which 
Goethe  drew.  Also  consult  an  interesting  article 
("  Goethe  und  Suleika  ")  in  Julian  Schmidt's  Bilder  aus 
clem  geistigen  Leben,  Leipzig,  1870. 

Page  218. — Schiller. — The  cheap  edition  of  Carlyle's 
Life  of  Schiller,  published  in  1873,  has  a  supplement  on 
Schiller's  parents  and  sisters.  This  is  chiefly  made  up 
of  translations  from  the  works  of  Saupe  and  others.  It 
is  well  worth  reading,  and  it  touchingly  dej^icts  (to  use 
Carlyle's  words)  "  an  unconsciously  noble  scene  of 
Poverty  made  richer  than  any  California." 

Page  221.  —  Wilhelm  Tell.  —  Wilhelm  Tell  (though 
prostituted  as  a  school-book)  is,  next  to  Faust,  the  no- 
blest tragedy  w^hich  has  appeared  since  the  times  of 
Shakespeare.  The  third  scene  of  the  fourth  act,  where 
Tell   struggles  w^ith  his    feelings  before  slaying    the 


NOTES  281 

tyrant,  is  Tinsurpassed  for  tone  patlios  and  itigged 
strength  of  expression.  Carlyle  has  given  a  translation 
of  this  scene  in  his  Life  of  Schiller. 

Page  221.— i?/c7?Yer.— Jean  Paul,  unlike  Goethe  and 
Schiller,  has  not  been  fully  translated  for  English  read- 
ers. Carlyle  himself  has  left  us  renderings  of  two  of 
his  stories,  chosen  by  him  as  thoroughly  representative. 
Two  other  translations  are  in  Bohn's  Libraries— Zercma, 
a  work  on  education,  and  the  romantic  tale  entitled 
Flower,  Fruit,  and  Thorn  Pieces. 

Page  225.  —  Leave-taking.  —  Carlyle  has  been  often 
comi^ared,  sotto  voce  and  expressly,  to  each  of  the  three 
German  authors  he  most  loved,  and  whose  works  he  in- 
troduced by  his  useful  labors  to  so  many  English  read- 
ers. He  has  thus  in  turn  been  likened  to  Goethe,  Schil- 
ler, and  Richter.  He  is  furthest  from  Goethe,  whom 
he  most  venerated,  to  whom  his  obligations  were  great- 
est, and  with  whom^  alone  of  the  three,  he  entered  into 
personal  communion.  Goethe,  with  much  of  Carlyle's 
conscientiousness  and  force,  possessed  in  a  large  meas- 
ure those  very  qualities  wherein  Carlyle  was  weakest ; 
for  who  does  not  allow  Goethe's  calm,  his  fairness,  his 
fine  appreciation  of  all  that  is  essential  and  beautiful  in 
form.  He  is  accordingly  by  French  admirers  and  by 
his  own  countrymen  placed  far  above  his  great  English 
interpreter,  as  a  man  in  every  way  wider  and  pro- 
founder.  Certainly  he  is  more  harmonious  ;  he  was 
guided  by  the  key-note  of  artistic  forbearance  (the 
tir^heu  ayav  of  the  Greeks — the  ne  quid  nimis  of  their 
Latin  imitators)  with  a  nicety  to  which  Carlyle  could 
never  adjust  his  own  compositions.  He  at  no  time 
made  any  such  pretensions.  It  were  useless,  therefore, 
to  pursue  this  comparison  further. 

Yet  surely  Carlyle  deserves  praise  for  perceiving,  as 


282  NOTES 

he  did,  the  distinctive  excellence  of  Goethe.  This  vir- 
tue is  enhanced  when  we  reflect  on  the  differences  be- 
tween those  two  writers.  To  revere  what  we  lack  our- 
selves is  the  genuine  nucleus  of  piety.  We  find  good 
in  the  humblest  man  when  he  admires  the  teacher  who 
shows  him  a  little  part  of  the  road  to  the  infinite. 
There  were  strong  ties  of  attraction  between  Carlyle 
and  Goethe.  How  else  could  Carlyle  have  translated 
so  beautifully  the  charming  verses  in  Wilhelm  Meister? 
Through  these  versions  he  shines  as  a  true  i^oet,  and 
not  a  mere  satellite,  fitted  only  to  reflect  the  light  of 
the  sun  of  Weimar. 

Goethe  sincerely  esteemed  Carlyle's  Life  of  Schillei\ 
who  is  not  wholly  unlike  his  biographer.  Carlyle  sur- 
passed Schiller  in  the  important  gift  of  humor  and  in 
dogged  industry.  In  other  resj)ects  Schiller  ajDpears 
his  equal  or  superior.  Both  were  historians.  Carlyle 
was  more  copious,  more  desciiptive,  more  vehement ; 
in  quiet  streiigth,  in  smoothness,  in  love  of  liberty,  in 
his  firmer  and  more  psychological  grasp  of  the  ruling 
ideas  which  persist  from  age  to  age,  the  author  of  The 
Thirty-years'  War  transcends  the  sturdy  chronicler  of 
the  great  Frederick,  the  eloquent  but  too  precipitate 
commentator  on  France  in  her  good  and  evil  efforts  to 
obtain  freedom.  Fine  was  the  dramatic  genius  of  Car- 
lyle, but  he  diffused  what  it  revealed  to  him  through 
the  general  body  of  his  writings.  He  never  so  concen- 
trated his  powers  as  to  rival  those  lofty  works,  worthy 
of  their  heroes,   Wilhehn  Tell  and  Wallenstein. 

Carlyle  comes  much  closer  to  Kichter,  howsoever  di- 
verse their  gifts  and  products.  To  call  the  latter  a 
writer  inferior  to  Goethe  or  Schiller  is  at  once  true,  ob- 
vious, unnecessary,  meaningless,  and  invidious.  Kich- 
ter would  have  shrunk,  with  real  modesty,  from  the 
comparison.      He  has  his  own  excellences  ;  like  every 


NOTES  283 

noteworthy  man  of  genius  he  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  in- 
comparable. The  German,  like  the  English  Jean  Paul 
(for  so  is  Carlyle  often  termed),  has  been  well  styled 
the  unique,  der  einzige,  the  only  one.  Eichter  resem- 
bles Carlyle  in  his  mixture  of  defects  and  merits. 
Eoth  play  tricks  with  language,  alternately  losing  and 
gaining  by  risking  extraordinary  expressions.  Both 
indulge,  like  St.  Paul,  in  numerous  anacolutha.  The 
humor  of  both  is  strong,  and  not  always  restrained  ;  it 
highly  pleases,  it  sometimes  shocks  us.  They  agree 
most  in  the  spirit  animating  their  works,  their  love  of 
innate  heroism  struggling  against  outward  hindrances, 
their  confidence  in  the  ultimate  victory  of  truth  and 
providence,  their  hopes  for  man  and  their  faith  in  his 
future.  Both  were  hard  workers  and  high  thinkers  : 
none  could  be  more  unlike  Dante's  "  scicmrati  che  mai 
lion  fur  viTiy  Eichter  ami  Carlyle  were  thoroughly  in- 
stinct with  life  and  with  that  which  is  better  than  life — 
immortality.  That  is  why  they  have  left  such  good 
things  behind  them.  Now  they  rest  from  their  labors, 
and  their  works  will  follow  them.  Each  might  have 
felt,  like  Goethe, — 

"Es  kann  die  Spur  von  meinen  Erdentagen 
Niclit  in  Aeouen  untergeliu  :  " 

and  have  said  with  Schiller, — 

"  Getrcstet  konnen  wir  zu  Grabe  steigen : 
Es  lebt  iiacli  uns  ;— durcli  andre  Krafte  will 
Das  Herrliclie  der  Menschheit  sich  erhalten. " 


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